College staff were honoured at the annual Student Academic Choice Awards (SACAs) hosted by Imperial College Union last night.

All students were invited to nominate staff in eight categories including Teaching for Undergraduates, Best Supervision, Best Support Staff and Best Feedback.  This year there were 614 award nominations and 48 nominees were shortlisted for the awards.  Dr David Thomas, Course Director of Electronic and Information Engineering, won twice at the event, winning ‘Best Feedback’ and ‘Best Innovation’. He says:

“I’m surprised and honoured to receive these awards, and I really appreciate the nominations from our students. The areas where I’ve been able to innovate and give good feedback rely on students who are engaged with the learning process, and willing to participate as peers.

For example, I am particularly pleased when students file issues (i.e. bug reports) against coursework assignments, and then often also supply a fix - it shows that they have understood the problem at a deep level, and openly sharing the bugs makes them a better engineer, as well as helping their peers (and me) become better engineers. Useful feedback is often detailed and complex, so I also rely on students who are willing to analyse and respond to the feedback, and also to question it where necessary.

Our students are not only intelligent, but also very active participants in their learning - this gives us the space and opportunity to innovate and improve teaching, while being able to rely on feedback from the students themselves to help us learn how to teach better (it’s all very meta). So a large portion of these awards should probably be shared with the students themselves - shout out to EIE and HPCE!”

Staff also shortlisted from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering:
Mr Vic Boddy – Best Support; Himadri Das – Best GTA; Dr Yiannis Demiris – Best Innovation; Dr Kristel Fobelets - Best Feedback; Mrs Esther Perea – Best Support and Stephanie Reynolds – Best GTA.

Congratulations to all nominees, those shortlisted and the winners.