As VP Education this year the event I was most looking forward to was the Teaching Awards. Having attended last year’s event as a guest I couldn’t wait to throw myself into the event and celebrate all the great teaching that happens at MMU. The Teaching Awards is a fantastic campaign, and we have tons of stories to share and I cannot think of a better way to do it. This year we received over 1,200 nominations from across the university, which were submitted solely by students. As a member of the shortlisting panel alongside NUS and MMU Staff and students, it was great to see the sincerity and passion in which our students wrote these nominations.

The Teaching awards are all about celebrating education and sharing best practice at MMU. Sometimes through surveys and feedback, it can seem that students only want to talk about the negative aspects of their education or the things that need to be improved. This is definitely not what the teaching awards are about. These awards allow us to celebrate excellent examples of learning and teaching in a really positive way, by rewarding best practice and by recognising the things that MMU do well. These awards also allow us to thank those teachers who go above and beyond to make sure that students receive the best education possible and it goes without saying that students are grateful. I know from my personal experience as a student, that those teachers who challenged and pushed me, and made me feel like a real member of a learning community, made my university experience. One of my motivations of becoming an officer was to change things, but I also want to make sure that other students received a fantastic experience like I did.   

On the night ten awards were presented, I would like to say a massive well done to the winners and shortlisted staff that really did make the night what it was. It was great to see how excited staff were, my favourite part of the night was hearing a group of staff ‘whoop whoop’ when an award was given out. It made me feel like I was at the side of a court watching some students play sport! Also to quote a winner, they said that receiving an award was ‘better than money’. As far as I am concerned you cannot ask for more than that! A special mention goes out to Mark Stubbs and the Learning and Research Technologies Team who received the MMUnion Award for Outstanding Achievement. Most students will not know about the immense work that a department like this does to enhance their learning experience. Most students actually at MMU now would never have experienced the delights of Webct which was replaced by Moodle. This award acknowledges the tireless work and implementation of that system, now so rooted in every aspect of student and staff life that it feels like it has always been there. Moodle links traditional academic practise to the ever expanding technologies available in the class room and in the pocket of every student. The constant enhancement to the Virtual learning environment has been nothing short of fantastic and the excellent feedback it receives is a testament to the Learning and Research Technologies team. On top of this everything this team does is in partnership with students and the students union, for me this is special within its self! I am all about Partnership! So well done again, and I cannot wait to see what they do next with Moodle 2 and anything else they have up their sleeves.  

I hope everyone involved had as good a time as I did and I look forward to attending next year’s event.

Hannah Templeman

VP Education