The POD Innovation Award recognizes POD Network members who have developed and implemented creative ideas for educational development. This recognition is presented at the annual conference.
Purpose
The purpose of the award is twofold:
- To encourage participants to share their ideas with colleagues in the POD Network.
- To recognize those working in any area of educational development: faculty, graduate student, instructional, or organizational development.
History
It was at the 1986 annual POD conference in Hidden Valley, Pennsylvania, that Marilla Svinicki and Marilyn Leach launched the Bright Idea Award (BIA). Their purpose was to recognize innovative ideas that improve learning and teaching, as well as enhance the general effectiveness of higher education faculty members. The basic intent was to share innovative ideas with the POD membership and encourage others to adapt the ideas for their own use, as well as to develop useful innovations themselves.
Continuing this tradition at each annual conference of the POD Network, the Bright Idea Awards were presented to participants who implemented creative ideas for the enhancement of teaching and learning and/or faculty development. In 2004, the name of the award was changed to the POD Innovation Award. Recipients are recognized at the Awards banquet and receive an engraved trophy.
We encourage both new and experienced participants at the annual POD conference to submit an entry. We welcome submissions on any topic related to educational development.
To win the POD Innovation Award, at least one author listed on the innovation poster submission is required to:
- Be a member of POD at the time of submission;
- If chosen as a finalist, attend the POD conference;
- If chosen as a finalist, participate in a virtual 30-minute Q&A session with the selection committee one or two weeks before the conference;
- Attend the conference awards ceremony either virtually or in-person.
Application Form
- Title of your Innovation
- Category (Teaching and Learning; Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Consulting with Faculty; Workshops, Seminars, Conferences; Organizational Development; Teaching Assistant Development; Faculty Development Using Technology; Other). Note that the choice of category is for informational purposes only and has no impact on the selection process.
- Abstract of your innovation (max. 75 words)
- Description, including the innovation’s goals, what makes it innovative, its impact, and its outcomes (500 words or less. Use the Innovation Award Rubric to guide and organize your submission )
- Contact information for all contributors
The selection committee, comprised of former recipients of the Innovation Award and at-large POD Network members, will review the submissions with the following process and rubric:
Round 1:
The POD Innovation Award committee determines the submissions that best meet the criterion, “Innovative,” on the Innovation Award Rubric. The submissions with the highest scores move on to Round 2.
Round 2:
The Innovation Award Rubric is used to review the remaining submissions. The submissions with the highest scores become the finalists for the Innovation Award. Typically there are 3–5 finalists. Selected finalists will be notified in the week of September 23.
Round 3:
Each finalist team submits a poster to the chair of the Innovation Award selection committee. Posters will be presented at the poster session. In the two weeks prior to the conference, finalists will sign up for a virtual 30 minute meeting with the selection committee. These meetings are informal and require no preparation; they are intended to help the committee determine which of the finalists’ submissions best meets the criteria of the Innovation Award. The committee will meet to determine a winning submission, which will be announced at the conference awards ceremony.
The following suggestions come from the current members of the Innovation Award Committee, whose perspectives have been shaped by reviewing dozens of proposals each year. Generally speaking, successful proposals:
- Address all the rubric criteria in their description with specificity and detail;
- Emphasize innovation, since it is weighted most heavily in the rubric. “Innovation” can mean an entirely original idea or changes to an existing concept or practice; if your proposal takes the latter form, be sure to articulate what has changed and what makes it innovative;
- Indicate, if applicable, whether and how the innovation could be borrowed, adapted, or replicated by other educational developers and institutions (this consideration falls under the accessibility/expertise component of the rubric).
- Share a website to support your entry if you have one, but do not rely on it to communicate the significance of or details about your innovation. During the first round of scoring, all submissions are scored for their degree of innovation based only on the content of the submission form, so make sure that the description of your innovation makes a persuasive case on its own terms. Websites are supplemental material. The committee holds off on reviewing them until the second round in order to ensure an equitable review process, as not all submissions come with links to websites.
Should you have any questions, please contact Lori Mumpower, POD Innovation Award Chair at [email protected].
Award Recipients
2025
Teaching Techniques Game: Play Your Way to Better Student Learning!
Johanna Inman, Magdalena Maczynska, and Gabby Constantin-Dureci, Teaching and Learning Center, Drexel University
Dr. Inman and her team created an interactive card-based game designed to spark conversation and collaboration among faculty around evidence-based teaching practices. This creative approach to engaging faculty across disciplines was recognized because of its broad applicability across teaching and learning contexts and its ability to capture teaching techniques for future use by instructors
2024
Advancing Inclusive & Equitable Teaching in 3D: Department Partnerships with Data and Discussion
Ruthann C. Thomas, Raechel N. Soicher, and Amanda R. Baker from the Teaching + Learning Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Dr. Thomas and her colleagues gathered and analyzed data from students, instructors, and course syllabi to inform meaningful discussions with partnering departments. This nuanced approach enabled participating departments to implement inclusive and equitable teaching practices tailored to their needs. For more details, read their open-access paper here.
2023
Small Teaching, Big Results: Leveraging Department Chairpersons to Improve Teaching and Learning
Lori Mumpower, Kim Chambers, Amy Cicchino, Teha Cooks, Claudia Cornejo Happel, and Chad Rohrbacher from the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Daytona Beach
For their Small Teaching Challenge project, the CTLE encouraged faculty members to adopt evidence-based teaching practices that were easy to implement. To engage a large number of faculty, the CTLE members built on relationships with department chairs and interdepartmental competition. Students rated the teaching practices highly on their end-of-course evaluations, and participating faculty members expressed interest in continuing to use the teaching practices and in repeating the Small Teaching Challenge in the future.
2022
SPARK: Summer Programs—Achieve, Renew, Kindle
Diane Chapman, Maria Gallardo-Williams, Jonathan Holloway, Sunanda Dillon, and Janet Del Pinal from the Office for Faculty Excellence at NC State University
SPARK is an asynchronous, professional development program that aims to inspire participants as they prepare for the Fall semester. Every summer, the program focuses on a different topic and creates four media packages containing a podcast, a blog post and downloadable resources. In combination with a discussion forum, these packages allow faculty, staff, and graduate students to engage with the content and each other at their leisure. Find out more about this project by visiting https://provost.ncsu.edu/ofe/events-and-programs/nc-state-spark-summer-programs-aspire-renew-kindle/.
2021
The Rubik’s Cube Challenge: An Expert Blindspot Learning Adventure
Lew Ludwig from the Center for Teaching and Learning at Denison University and Benjamin Haywood from the Faculty Development Center at Furman University
For this project, faculty members at both universities were invited to participate in a six-week challenge to learn how to solve the Rubik’s Cube. Along the way they experienced the joys and frustrations that are part of learning and engaged in discussion board prompts and reflections to work through those challenges. The project reminded experts of what it is like to be a novice and equipped them with pedagogical strategies to better support their students’ learning going forward. Find out more about this project by visiting: https://furman.app.box.com/s/9tx10j9ase6q7lhqp12d1mc2yf223j6f
2020
Teaching and Learning in the Diverse Classroom: An Online Professional Development Course for Instructors
Mathew Ouellett, Melina Ivanchikova, and Ana Ruival of Cornell University’s Center for Teaching Innovation
This online course support instructors in designing and sustaining inclusive learning environments. It’s available to Cornell instructors in Canvas and for a global audience on edX.org as a Massive Open Online Course. The course has run six times, with 7,291 participants. It’s companion facilitator’s guide enables adoption of the course at colleges and universities worldwide.
What’s an assignment that really helped you learn? The survey says…
Carolyn Samuel, Eva Dobler, Mariela Tovar, and Bruktawit Maru of McGill University’s Teaching and Learning Services team.
Dr. Samuel and her colleagues surveyed McGill students about memorable assignments that helped them learn, and then created an online repository of assignment descriptions and interviews with the instructors nominated by students. The project raises both instructors’ and students’ awareness of assessment for learning. The project also helps instructors understand how students learn and recognize the importance of varied and equitable assessment practices.
2019
Faculty Development for Virtual Exchange: Empowering Instructors to Lead Online International Learning Experiences
Joe Olivier, Bridget Wagner, Daniel Stanford, Sarah Brown, and Sharon Guan from the Center for Teaching and Learning and GianMario Besana and Rosi Leon from the Office of Global Engagement at DePaul University
In 2013, DePaul University launched a faculty development program to support “virtual exchange” experiences in courses. In these experiences, DePaul students and students from foreign institutions collaborate online over a period of several weeks, learning about each other’s cultures and completing collaborative projects together. As of the summer 2019, faculty have added virtual exchange experiences to 100 courses in dozens of disciplines, allowing 1800 DePaul students to collaborate with their peers in 26 countries. Find out more about this project by visiting https://go.depaul.edu/gle.
2018
Students Helping Students Provide Valuable Feedback on Course Evaluations
Adriana Signorini, Mariana Abuan, Jose Sandoval, Gautam Panakkal, Val Murillo from the University of California, Merced in the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning
Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) become missed opportunities when students do not provide actionable feedback. This project aimed to improve the quality of student responses on SETs by creating a peer-led presentation on the importance of SETs for students captured in a brief video. 29 courses and 529 SET responses were analyzed by the 4 participating faculty who reported an increase in actionable feedback. Find out more about this project by visiting http://cetl.ucmerced.edu/SATAL_Video.
2017
A New Tool for Course Design: The Course Workload Estimator
Elizabeth A. Barre, Justin E. Esarey, Josh Eyler, and Robin Paige from Rice University’s Center for Teaching Excellence
The Course Workload Estimator uses evidence-based estimates of reading and writing rates to calculate the time specific assignments will require. Research indicates that the amount of out-of-class work instructors assign can have significant implications for student learning. Yet we typically rely on intuition to determine how much work is reasonable. This free tool can be used by instructors and instructional developers at all institutions and in nearly every content area. Find out more about this tool by visiting http://cte.rice.edu/workload/.
2016
c3Design: A Highly Interactive, Online Course Design Learning Environment
Michael Palmer from the University of Virginia’s Center for Teaching Excellence
The c3Design online learning environment builds on UVA’s Course Design Institute to capture the best of the institute’s face-to-face experiences and augments it with a number of powerful electronic tools. It allows individual instructors to walk through the process of backward-integrated design on their own, which increases accessibility. Several innovative features support this goal: a series of well-crafted knowledge checks, an auto-populated syllabus template, a novel integration map, our award-winning syllabus rubric, and a fully searchable learning-focused syllabus database. Additional details can be found on the project website: http://www.c3design.academy/about-c3Design.
2015
Boosting for Retention and Connected Learning
Linda Serro and Jackie Greene from Florida Gulf Coast University’s Center for Faculty Development
The concept of “Boosting” is supported by the understanding that real learning does not occur in one-time events but needs spacing repetitions to move content into long-term memory (Thalheimer, 2006). The Ebbinghuas curve applies to faculty members who participate in professional development as well students in our classes. To mitigate this problem the Center sends a boost within a few hours of a session with faculty. They summarize the topics covered, give additional information related to the topic, include links to helpful resources, suggest ways to apply the information and remind people of upcoming topics to be covered.
2013
Template for an online workshop: 1) View/Read 2) Reflect 3) Plan to implement
Erping Zhu and Meg Bakewell from the University of Michigan
This modular approach translates faculty development programming from a face-to-face to a wholly online modality. After a period of exposure to initial content, participants complete a reflective activity, and then exchange ideas with peers about incorporating new techniques into their teaching. The approach may be used by all types of higher education institutions, for many types of content. The potential for re-use makes the return on investment quite high.
2012
Online New Faculty Workshop
Bridget Arend and Kathy Keairns, University of Denver
Their winning submission details a workshop that exposes new faculty to a variety of teaching strategies and educational technologies, and models best practice in course design and teaching. Participants work through interactive modules and contribute to discussion forums, blogs, wikis, and quizzes to demonstrate completion, and optional online discussions, live online webinars, and face-to-face sessions follow in the fall. This online version of the workshop saw vastly increased attendance, and is now required for all new faculty at the university.
2010
One-Hour Conference (and Web Conference)
Jim Therrell, Central Michigan University
For busy faculty who may not have time for a traditional teaching and learning conference, The One-Hour Conference (and Web Conference) is a 3-times/semester special event over 3 days (3 hours total) where faculty receive lunch, a 5-minute keynote, their choice of 2-3 breakout sessions, and follow-up resources. Along with providing choices, the conference is billed as a convenient, timely way to learn research-based methods, teaching tips, and technology techniques for creating higher impact learning. The face-to-face portion is scheduled for 2 consecutive days in order to meet diverse faculty schedules, and followed up a few days later with a webinar of the same content, The Less than an Hour Web Conference.
2009
From Associate Professor to Professor: Productive Decision-Making at Mid-Career
Deb DeZure, Cindi Young, and Allyn Shaw, Michigan State University
From Associate Professor to Professor: Productive Decision-Making at Mid-Career is an orientation for mid-career faculty who have just received tenure or been promoted to full professor. This half-day university-wide orientation to the mid-career experience is for newly tenured faculty. The program clarifies expectations, policies and procedures for promotion to professor and identifies challenges and opportunities of the mid-career experience. The content is based on a study of mid-career faculty experiences; expectations, relevant policies and procedures; and advice from senior administrators, deans, and chairs who participate in promotion decisions and newly promoted professors.
2008
An Online Tool for Teaching Consultations
Michele DiPietro, and several of his colleagues at the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University
This online tool addresses common instructor laments, educates them about the possible reasons at the root of those problems, and suggests strategies tailored to each reason. The tool takes users through 3 steps. After selecting a teaching problem, they get presented with a set of possible underlying reasons. Clicking on a reason gives a bit of background about the research in that area, and a list of solutions tailored to the reasons. The tool, available for free at http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/solveproblem/, is useful to both instructors and educational developers.