Awards for Good Teaching at Stockholm University are awarded each year to one teacher from each faculty. The award is granted to teachers who satisfy the criteria that they promote students’ learning by outstanding contributions to education, recognized interest and engagement in pedagogical development, and renowned skill in teaching.

Illustration: Sara-Mara
Illustration: Sara-Mara

The Vice-Chancellor has now granted the awards for 2017. Each of the rewarded teachers will receive SEK 50,000 to be used as they please to support the development of their pedagogical competence. They will also receive a diploma that will be presented to them by the Vice-Chancellor during the university’s ceremonies in the City Hall on Friday 29th September. The four teachers are presented below.

Inauguration of New Professors and Conferment of Doctoral Degrees on Friday 29th September 2017

 

Faculty of Natural Science

 

“She creates an optimal learning situation with clear goals and a strong belief in the ability of the students.”

Dr Hildred Crill from the Department of Geological Sciences has been rewarded for excellent teaching since she succeeds in supporting students to develop confidence in their academic writing in English by using a great variety of teaching methods and activities. Using published journal articles as a basis she supports students with different linguistic back­grounds to develop an ability to assess the quality of their own texts. The students nominated Dr Crill because she creates an optimal opportunity for learning and because they appreciate the support she offers with clear goals, frequent and concrete feedback, and a strong belief in their ability.

Faculty of Humanities

“She sees each and every individual in the room and gets students with different perspectives into the discussion.”

Dr Lisa Käll from the Department for Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender Studies has been rewarded for excellent teaching because she sees students as active producers of knowledge, makes their studies feel relevant to them, and encourages them to reflect frequently on their learning. Getting students to write is an essential part of Dr Käll’s way of teaching. She has two guiding principles: that students should feel that their studies are relevant and that there is no such thing as a stupid question. The students who have nominated Dr Käll emphasize that she is attentive to every single student in her class and that they feel confident that various perspectives are provided space in the discussions.

Faculty of Law

“He gets us to understand the difficult things and to cope with problems that feel impossible.”

Prof. Said Mahmoudi from the Department of Law has been rewarded for excellent teaching because he guides the students to take responsibility for their studies while he himself puts a great deal of effort into his preparation for teaching and into making sure that all the students understand the subject. The students’ nominations show that he really does achieve this ambition. The students describe Prof. Mahmoudi as an approachable and friendly teacher. They emphasize his ability to make difficult things easier to understand. Often he achieves this by using digital materials such as movies that have the added advantage of making studying more relevant and engaging.

Faculty of Social Science

”He gets students to really get into the subject.”

Dr Daniel Ritter from the Department of Sociology has been rewarded for excellent teaching because of the way in which he guides students in their studies by using a clear structure in his teaching and a great deal of interactivity and dialogue. He achieves this by, amongst other things, presenting a clear agenda at the start of each session and giving a summary at the end. In his assessment tasks Dr Ritter aims for “critical creativity”, i.e. the students are encouraged to develop an ability to think about relevant societal issues as sociologists. The students who have nominated Dr Ritter describe how he engages them in discussion, regularly checks that they understand even the most difficult theories in Sociology, and gets them interested and engaged in sociological issues beyond their formal studies at university.

What is the Award for Good Teaching?