The Multinational Teaching Fellowship interest group (MNTF IG) represents award winning scholars and those aspiring to submit applications for teaching awards. The group embraces a culture of sharing experiences and expertise to develop and distribute resources useful to supporting sustained excellence in teaching and learning. By connecting teaching fellows across countries, cultures, curricula and continents, the group truly embodies the ethos of a multinational community of practice. Through the group we aim to promote the key values of what teaching excellence is and how through collaboration we can support, enhance, advocate and embed changes to criteria and outputs for excellence. To achieve these objectives, the group works closely with the newly established ISSoTL fellows program to support initiative and encourage application. The differentiating feature for the MNTF IG is that we engage with discussion around application and applied outputs emerging from teaching fellowship applications. The group is instrumental in probing and tackling questions around global definition, analysis and value of teaching fellowship, excellence and agency and thereby advancing the scholarship within this area. Through the group we further aim to learn with and from one another, share best practice and collectively work towards impact, value and reach of our work within, and beyond the borders of SoTL.
Activities Undertaken
The group was established in 2004 as a working interest group to support multinational teaching fellows. This was an exclusive focus and restricted membership. In 2008 it was decided to expand the reach and impact of the group to include Multinational recognised teaching fellows together with institutional award winners or those aspiring to apply for such recognition. The group has since successfully managed to:
- Hold 3 international panels at ISSoTL conference to address multinational teaching fellowships.
- Contributed to numerous publications on teaching excellence ranging from conference abstracts through to empirical research, blogs and interviews.
- Established extended networks to continue the work outside of the IG.
- Presented papers/posters at ISSoTL and other teaching and learning conferences.
- Contributed to the assessment of teaching excellence criteria.
- Supported the establishment of the ISSoTL fellows program.
- Hosted the SoTLvision workshops to support the development of SoTL and teaching excellence.
- Delivered keynote addresses at pedagogical conference and scholarly forums on teaching excellence.
- Actively supported members in their successful attainment of teaching excellence awards include NTF and Advance HE fellowship in the UK, 3M Teaching Excellence in Canada, Carnegie Teaching Excellence in the US, and numerous institutional excellence awards across the globe.
Planned Activities
In conjunction with the new ISSoTL fellows program, the MNTF is working to further support multinational development and is currently planning a book series to enable members to document their journeys and experiences through the teaching excellence terrain. The aim of the book is to support and provide insight into the work of a teaching fellow, deconstruct boundaries around reward and award, and truly identify the value and impact of teaching fellowship within international contexts.
The COVID-19 pandemic crisis has encouraged creative solutions to pedagogical problems and this group has the experience and expertise to positively contribute to the future advancement of teaching excellence across different contexts and landscapes. Through a book series we plan to fully capture lessons from lockdown and work towards sharing of best practice so that the book becomes a used and useful resource for aspiring scholars and academics.
Contacts
Group Lead:
Earle Abrahamson, NTF, PFHEA, FISSoTL
University of East London, UK
E-mail: e.abrahamson@herts.ac.uk
Actively looking for at least one other international member to help coordinate group activities going forward.