Instructure Recognises Four Outstanding EMEA Educators Redefining Teaching in the COVID-19 Era

Annual Educator of the Year Awards are Nominated by Fellow Educators and Administrators, and Students

SALT LAKE CITY — Oct 4 2021 — Instructure today announced the winners of its 2021 Educator of the Year Awards in connection with this week’s InstructureCon 2021 edtech conference. The program recognises outstanding EMEA educators working to embrace remote learning, prepare students for the workforce, and support student success and achievement in an evolving education landscape.

"Educators everywhere take on insurmountable challenges with optimism and patience, and that’s never been more true than in the past school year," said Melissa Loble, Chief Customer Experience Officer at Instructure. "Each educator we’ve selected truly excelled in an increasingly challenging environment and inspired their colleagues and students in the process. Congratulations to all of our 2021 winners!”

The 2021 Educator of the Year Award winners for EMEA are

Teacher / Lecturer

Sally Pritchard - Senior Lecturer, Anglia Ruskin University (UK)

Sally is an enthusiastic and authentic social work educator. Sally exceeded expectations adapting to hybrid remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic for the “Step Up to Social Work” course. Sally’s provision was excellent and her oversight ensured consistent execution and a cohesive student experience. She delivered narrated PowerPoints supported with live Zoom sessions, which were recorded and made available afterwards. She supplemented core teaching with video interviews with practitioners, videos or padlets with practitioners providing answers to student questions, embedded quizzes, and e-resources, including films and provided weekly live clarification sessions for students. Student feedback was excellent and Sally was nominated for an internal “Outstanding Teacher” award.

Teaching Support

Kathryn Taylor - Subject Leader for Philosophy, Religion and Ethics and Digital Learning

Coordinator, Chesham Grammar School (UK) “Kathryn was invaluable in supporting us all through lockdown learning with new ways of working with technology, including Canvas. Without Kathryn’s support in lockdown, my online lessons would have been much less effective for all my students,” said History & Politics teacher, Helen Southwood. Kathryn embraces the use of new technologies to enhance provision for her students making online learning fun and interactive. She taught teachers, parents and students how to use online platforms, sharing her expertise widely across the school to the benefit of both students and colleagues. Kathryn's approach ensured students had access to a wide range of resources and to timely support from their teacher.

Instructional Designer

Ansar Utegenov - Quality Assurance Manager and Canvas LMS Administrator, M. Narikbayev KAZGUU University (Kazakhstan)

Ansar is a talented Instructional Designer and interpreter of Canvas. KAZGUU University successfully transformed the learning process into a blended format. Ansar’s support was instrumental to this shift, creating guides for teachers and students, as well as learning video tutorials and manuals to improve teaching and learning through Canvas. “He knows how to ‘tune’ Canvas LMS to better inform learning progress,” said Provost Sergey Pen.

Other (other HE Education roles):

Nathanael Howell - Safeguarding Officer, The Catch-Up Team, Blackpool and Fylde College (UK)

Blackpool & the Fylde College aimed to engage with students who are eligible for the Catch-Up tuition funding to ensure all students can achieve a grade 4 or equivalent in English and Maths. Their primary areas of support were: wellbeing, motivation, attendance and attainment. The pandemic affected England in many ways, especially for young people in education. Students are uncertain about how their grades will be assessed, concerned about home learning, loss of pastoral support and loss of their “safe place” away from difficult home environments. To combat these risks to education, Blackpool & the Fylde College looked at barriers as a challenge to attendance, especially with online learning becoming “the norm.” By identifying and working to remove these challenges, online learning becomes easier, and attendance to online sessions is more likely. Blackpool and the Fylde coast has the biggest disadvantage gap in England, with students being around two years behind other areas. To close this gap, the Catch-Up team aims to holistically support young people, and mentor towards a chosen destination. At the start of the project, there were around 1500 students who were eligible for Catch-Up support. This year, 813 Catch-Up eligible students have received one-on-one support via online workshops, covering topics such as CV writing and UCAS applications, and personal development such as healthy relationships, safeguarding, and mental health awareness. In addition, these students participated in 2875 meetings with tutors, and had access to 6,263 additional learning hours. The end result saw 723 individual barriers removed. Attendance across the student numbers increased by 13% on average and the team and students had over a 90% success rate on achievement in English/Maths outcomes.

Selecting the 2021 Winners

The Educator of the Year Awards were judged on the following criteria, with specific emphasis on adapting to hybrid and remote teaching, and/or embracing technology in the classroom in new and exciting ways:

• How does this teacher redefine traditional classroom activities to help students meet their academic goals?
• How does this teacher’s classroom experience support inclusion and improve achievement for at-risk populations?
• How does this teacher inspire students, spark curiosity, and support student growth and achievement?

InstructureCon 2021 will take place on Thursday, October 7. Last year, Instructure held its first ever virtual conference where thousands of participants attended, with special presentations by inspiring figures in education including Sal Khan and LeVar Burton. To protect the safety of the educators and school professionals in attendance, this year’s event will once again be held online. To register visit https://www.instructure.com/en-gb/events/instructurecon21/registration

ABOUT INSTRUCTURE
Instructure (NYSE: INST) is an education technology company dedicated to elevating student success, amplifying the power of teaching, and inspiring everyone to learn together. Today the Instructure Learning Platform supports more than 30 million educators and learners around the world. Learn more at www.instructure.com.

CONTACT:
Maggie Quale
Corporate Communications Instructure
831.325.7943
maggie.quale@instructure.com

SOURCES: Instructure, Canvas