The Award for Excellence in Online Teaching recognizes instructors who have demonstrated a passion for, and commitment to, online teaching; instructors who have designed particularly creative and engaging online courses; and instructors who have found effective online teaching strategies to help students learn. All instructors teaching online courses who have taught at least one online course in the past calendar year are eligible. Self-nominations are not accepted. This award can only be received once; previous recipients are ineligible for nomination.

***Although most (if not all) of our faculty have gone the extra distance in the past couple of years to incorporate elements of online teaching, this award is only meant for instructors of fully online courses. If you're not sure, please review the list of Online Courses at Trent or contact us at teaching@trentu.ca.**  

How to nominate:

» Award for Excellence in Online Teaching nomination form

Tell the story! Complete the "Nominator Information" and the "Candidate Information" sections on the Nomination Form, open December 18, 2024 - January 29, 2025 at 4:00pm.

Make sure to review our list of previous award winners as individuals are only eligible to win the award once.

What are the award criteria? 

To have (a) candidate(s) considered for this Award, please address the following criteria:

Trent recognizes that the instruction of online courses may involve a collaborative effort and submissions for this award can be for either individuals or teams.

In addition to providing students with timely, helpful feedback and leadership to support and strengthen learning, the nominee(s) distinguish themselves by excelling in the following practices:

• Imaginative Approach: The nominee(s) have implemented a creative approach to one or more emerging instructional challenges.
• Quality of Course Materials and Instructional Strategies: The nominee(s) have created well-designed course materials and utilized effective instructional strategies.
• Learner Satisfaction: The nominee(s) have demonstrated rapport and ongoing engagement with learners as well as other course participants.
• Effective Learning Outcomes: The nominee(s) have demonstrated effectiveness in enabling students to achieve desired learning outcomes in the online course.

How is the award determined? 

The recipient of this award is determined by the Award Selection Committee based solely on the information that nominators like you provide. The strongest nominations provide specific details about how the candidate fulfills each of the award criteria.  

For helpful information on writing strong nominations, including exemplars, please see the Centre for Teaching and Learning's How to Write a Strong Nomination for a Teaching Award page.

Candidates may be nominated for more than one award in an academic year. However, during any given year, recipients may be selected to win only one award. Individuals may receive each award only once during their career.

The award has a monetary value of $750 and is accompanied by a framed certificate. The award is presented at the Celebration of Excellence in the spring. 

Previous Recipients

2023-2024  Dr. Else Marie Knudsen (Social Work) 

2022-2023 Dr. Erick Laming (Sociology)  

2021-2022 David King (Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies)  

2020-2021 Brent Bellamy (Cultural Studies and English)

2019-2020 Kim English (Nursing)

2018-2019 Susan Yates (Biology)

2017-2018 Paula Sherman (Indigenous Studies)