Santander-UC Pedagogical Innovation Awards

Created in 2019, the Santander-UC Pedagogical Innovation Awards were designed to promote and recognise pedagogical innovation projects and initiatives at the University of Coimbra (UC) designed by teaching staff. At the same time, these awards foster new learning environments, thus helping to encourage new dialogues between teachers and students and also between students and the subjects taught. Jorge Figueira is currently the coordinator of the Special Project for Learning and Pedagogical Innovation at the University of Coimbra (UC-AIPED), the structure that oversees the Santander-UC Pedagogical Innovation Awards.

Since the beginning of the Santander-UC Pedagogical Innovation Awards, which honour innovative pedagogical practices at the University of Coimbra, numerous initiatives have been recognised, and they all share a common goal: to present innovative ways of learning at our University. Teaching and innovation are structuring pillars of the UC, and these awards are designed to " provide a positive support for innovative practices that promote pedagogy within the University", explains Jorge Figueira.

The Santander-UC Pedagogical Innovation Awards are granted annually and have enabled "better teaching, which also means better learning, better results in learning and knowledge acquisition". The prize awards the winning initiatives €1,000, which must be applied in the implementation of the idea presented in the competition. Projects submitted must fulfil three main criteria: "be innovative in the approach to teaching, have a positive impact on learning and apply to other areas and subjects".

Jorge Figueira further states that the ability to combine research with pedagogical practice and interdisciplinarity are also factors that the jury takes into great consideration when evaluating applications, as well as the connection of the initiatives with the sustainability challenges integrated in the 2030 United Nations Agenda. Submission of proposals is simple: teachers must submit a form that includes a summary of the initiative, a presentation of the teaching team involved, the results to be achieved and how the value of the prize will be invested in improving the project they are submitting.

As for the fields of action of the initiatives and the target audience, the projects can integrate any area of knowledge and can be targeted to any cycle of studies of the University. Projects in the areas of Environmental Law, Artistic Studies, Health, Physics, Engineering, Design, Law, Life Sciences, Artificial Intelligence and Statistics have been awarded in previous editions of the Santander-UC Pedagogical Innovation Awards.

The awarded projects aimed, on a large scale, to convey knowledge to students in a differentiated way. Some examples of the actvivities carried out in the framework of the awards include the use of games to teach students how to debate different perspectives and points of view in the resolution of social conflicts related to the Sustainable Development Goals; using a YouTube channel to tell stories to better understand the Law; promoting contact between current undergraduate students and alumni with alternative pathways in Biology and Biochemistry; introducing mind management techniques during classroom activities; producing pedagogical videos in Portuguese from content available in English only; and promoting new online contact points between teachers and students; the inclusive understanding of Statistics based on the combined use of sight, hearing and touch; the use of service design methodologies to develop proposals for innovative solutions to problems in the context of health services and care; the use of mobile phones to carry out, in a crowdsourcing environment, scientific experiments related to the pedagogical contents; fostering the use of other areas of knowledge to develop artistic approaches to scientific topics; or the crossing of methodologies such as student-centred flipped and active learning, carried out with a balance between synchronous and asynchronous components, between face-to-face and remote learning.

The prize money enabled the awarded teachers to purchase materials for the implementation of the winning initiatives. But above all, the recognition has motivated them to seek new ways of teaching, challenging students to interact with different teaching and learning methods and responding to students' different academic backgrounds.

This initiative, open to all teaching staff of the University of Coimbra, stems from the encounter between the constant desire to teach better and the mission to continue motivating students to acquire new knowledge.

Content Production and Editing: Catarina Ribeiro, DCOM and Inês Coelho, DCOM

Image Editing: Sara Baptista, NMAR

Translation: Diana Taborda

^{Published on 12.01.2022}