Hochschule Geisenheim University’s Teaching Award honors instructors and teams of instructors who have made an exceptional contribution to academic teaching and who inspire and support their students in the learning process.
The award recognizes this outstanding commitment to excellent teaching and aims to share best practices in order to encourage staff to refine or improve their teaching concepts and modules.
Our students have a special role to play in this context as they are the only ones who can submit nominations.
Nominations for the winter semester 2022/23 are accepted until April 14, 2023.
Please note that only students (individually or as a team) are entitled to make nominations.
They can nominate single instructors or teams of instructors at Hochschule Geisenheim University whose courses in the winter semester 2022/23 – digital, face-to-face or hybrid – have been particularly inspiring.
Nominations must be submitted in ILIAS by April 14.
If you have further questions about the nomination process in general, please have a look at the following tabs.
The following is a brief overview of the general nomination and selection process and the award procedure.
Step 1 - Nomination: Instructors or teams of instructors whose digital, face-to-face or hybrid courses have been particularly inspiring are eligible for nominations. Please note that only students are entitled to nominate candidates.Nominations can be made at the end of each semester. The award recipients are awarded annually at the teaching forum.
Step 2 - Application: Nominees are notified by University Didactics & eLearning and asked to describe their teaching concept. They may use a form or additional materials such as posters or videos.
Step 3 - Selection: The award recipients are selected by the Awards Committee, which is chaired by the Vice-President of Academic and Student Affairs. The committee consists of of students and faculty members.
In addition to formal criteria, the Awards Committee puts special emphasis on the following qualitative criteria in the selection process:
That is why students are asked to provide reasons that illustrate how the nominees meet these criteria. In a second step, these explanations are compared with the teaching concept described by the instructor.
On the ILIAS form, you are asked to provide information on the course and the instructor(s) and to give reasons as well as specific examples to support your nomination
The following personal information is required:
Information on the course:
The Awards Committee is to select each year's recipients for the Teaching Award.
The committee is composed of equal numbers of students and teaching staff members and chaired by the Vice-President of Academic and Student Affairs. A new committee will be established each year. If you would like to join, feel free to apply during the application period.
Vice-President of Academic and Student Affairs
Prof. Dr. Alexander von Birgelen
Jannik Boer, B.Sc. Beverage Technology
Maximilian Retterath, M.Sc. Food Safety
Lisa Zimmermann, M.Sc. Beverage Technology
Dennis Zimmerstädt, 6th semester B.Sc. Horticulture
Katharina Adler, M.Sc.
Emma Gledhill-Schmitt, B. A.
Prof. Dr. Bianca May
Dr. Matthias Schmitt
The Teaching Award is presented annually at the Teaching Forum between the summer and winter semester. The 2023 Teaching Forum will be held on October 13. Each winner receives EUR 1,500 to use for their own teaching projects.
Nominations were made based on courses, not teachers, so individuals may be nominated more than once.
After reviewing the nominations as well as the teaching concepts submitted by the nominees, the Teaching Award was presented to three teachers.
The following statements describe very well the reasons why these three teachers were chosen.
"Prof. Leyer is an outstanding teacher! She knows how to challenge and support students."
"Prof. Schweiggert's course is characterized by its high level of content and quality, coupled with his ability to meet students where they are and increase their knowledge through collaborative working on the blackboard."
"When people talk about their education, they often remember one professor who was particularly inspiring as a person and in his or her specific subject. For me and for many of us, that person is Prof. Zinkernagel."
If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact hochschuldidaktik@hs-gm.de.
Special examples of innovative digital teaching at Geisenheim University were already highlighted in 2020. Feel free to take a look at the projects presented at that time. You can also find more examples of particularly successful examples on our page "Practical Examples of Digital Teaching".