KITE Award

With this prize the KdL aims

• to increase the status of teaching at ETH Zurich and its visibility outside the institution;
• to honour innovative approaches to teaching which improve the learning success of students, thereby visibly demonstrating that development of teaching and learning methods substantially increases the quality of education;
•  to motivate teachers to take part actively in this development;
• to make successful teaching approaches known and available across disciplinary boundaries.
  
   

The criteria that will be applied in awarding the KITE Award are as follows:

Innovativeness: Teaching will be understood as innovative if it follows new didactic approaches and methods and supports new forms of knowledge transfer, interaction, independent learning and feedback, thereby creating new possibilities for teaching and learning that have potential for application after the pandemic. This may also include teaching materials or digital learning environments that have been developed and deployed to promote effective learning.

Effectiveness: Teaching is effective if it (also by remote means) transfers and consolidates knowledge and competences sustainably. Students are led to take new approaches in their thinking, and they reflect critically on what they are learning. They are deeply engaged, they demonstrate effective and sustained learning. In doing so, the effectiveness of the teaching should be measurable and demonstrable.

Sustainability: The sustainability of projects is determined by whether they can be transposed to other subjects and disciplines. Decisive here are estimates of how far the teaching and learning scenario will have a long-term effect on ETH teaching, how it will affect future curricula and can thus make a lasting contribution to the further development, improvement or digitalisation of teaching and learning.

Candidates (individuals or teams) are nominated by any of the following bodies:

? The Heads of Department (DKs)
? The Departement Conferences, or
? The ETH Teaching Commission
? and now also lecturers themselves and students

Nomination proceeds in two steps:

1st stage: Short letter with the responsible persons and a brief explanation. The submission deadline is 8 July 2025, please send the nominations (in German or English) by email to Julia Kehl, Project Manager KITE Award, .

2nd stage: Detailed project documentation with reference to the criteria of innovation, effectiveness and sustainability. KdL will provide a template for this purpose. The complete documentation is due by 29 September 2025.

The KdL deploys a subcommittee as per Art. 14 of its bylaws, which acts as a selection committee. It is composed of four members of KdL; the President of the Executive Board Teaching Commission; the holder of the ETH Chair of Learning Sciences; one representative each of VSETH and AVETH; and an external member. One of the KdL members takes the chair and has the deciding vote if there is a tie.