Recognition as an Excellent Teaching Practitioner at NMBU
Have you made an extraordinary effort to improve teaching and educational quality at NMBU? You now have the opportunity to apply for recognition as an Excellent Teaching Practitioner.
The application deadline is September 15, 2025.
What is an Excellent Teaching Practitioner?
An Excellent Teaching Practitioner (ETP) is someone who excels by maintaining a consistent and clear focus on student learning in all their teaching activities. They systematically work to further develop their teaching and adopt an exploratory and scientific approach to planning, implementation, assessment, documentation, and adaptation of teaching practices. This involves not only an awareness of what they do and how they teach but also a clear reflection on why they choose specific teaching methods.
An Excellent Teaching Practitioner is also a team player who actively contributes to the academic community’s efforts to enhance educational quality. This includes sharing experiences, developing new teaching methods based on research and practice, and taking an active role in professional communities dedicated to teaching development.
Excellent Teaching Practitioners at NMBU
The Purpose of Recognition as an ETP
The ETP merit system is a national initiative designed to value and encourage increased teaching efforts in higher education. Meld. St. 16 (2016–2017) Quality Culture in Higher Education emphasizes the need to strengthen teaching competence throughout an academic career, not just at the time of employment. The purpose of recognition as an Excellent Teaching Practitioner is to elevate the status of educational activities and reward development and innovation in teaching and learning.
At NMBU, recognition as an ETP is an acknowledgment of educators who have systematically developed a research-based teaching practice over time. Knowledge of what enhances student learning is essential for ensuring educational quality, and educators who collaborate and share best practices play a key role in the development of academic programs.
A systematic approach to educational quality also helps strengthen academic communities focused on teaching. This aligns with the principles of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), which form the foundation of the Norwegian ETP merit system. Through the SoTL perspective, educators are encouraged to reflect on their own practice, document and share experiences, and contribute to knowledge development in higher education teaching.
The ETP merit system at NMBU is therefore both an acknowledgment of educators who go beyond the ordinary and a means to foster a stronger and more development-oriented learning culture in higher education.
Development of the ETP merit system at NMBU
The ETP merit system was first approved by the University Board on October 31, 2019. The merit system has been adjusted based on experiences from the calls in 2020 and 2022, as well as recommendations from an external evaluation in 2024. On September 19, 2024, the University Board approved the ETP merit system as a permanent merit system at NMBU.
Documentation on the ETP merit system can be found on case 25/01253.
The ETP merit system is administered by the Department of Academic Affairs.
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