King's College London

The awards, previously known as Teaching Excellence Awards, are highly competitive with more the 2000 nominations made by students. They are a chance for students to nominate their ‘shining star’ who has supported them in and out of the classroom.

Dr Helen Coulshed won in the Inclusive Education category. This award recognises an individual (or team) who shows commitment and dedication to widening participation by creating a diverse and inclusive environment, through curriculum content and design, teaching practice, and/or supporting students and colleagues.

Helen is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Chemistry and uses primary research and scholarship to design and deliver content that allows students to engage with the subject. With her colleagues, she aims to engineer interesting, challenging material and create a learning environment that encourages independent thinking and collaborative learning. Their assessments endeavour to encompass the learning outcomes for each module and the overall degree course and prepare students for future job roles. Helen spends most of her week teaching students in lecture theatres and labs, meeting with them to discuss project progress and ensuring her tutees are progressing well.

Alongside her research in chemistry, Helen is keen to follow educational research to develop and implement best practices for teaching. She is also heavily involved in Outreach and Equality & Diversity activities and is passionate about ensuring that King’s has a diverse and inclusive environment is essential to facilitate progress in teaching and research. Helen believes creating a diverse working environment, where students and staff feel able to contribute, will enable scientists and people to tackle local and global challenges in a holistic way. With support from the Widening Participation Department she has been able to engage teachers, parents and pupils from the most deprived schools in London and enable them to take up opportunities to use our facilities, speak with staff and students and obtain strategies to help them make informed decisions about studying science and applying to university.

Helen and her colleagues have also set up the NMS teaching fellow network which has enabled them to make links with other teaching fellows and the science education group CRESTEM.

Kwok-Wing Tsoi won in the Student Support category. This award recognises an individual (or team) who frequently goes the extra mile to support students in and outside of the classroom. They are committed to students in providing guidance, help, support, and encouragement outside of their required teaching responsibilities. 

Kwok-Wing has been a teaching assistant in the Department of Mathematics since starting his PhD in the London School of Geometry and Number Theory in 2015. He hosts some of the tutorials students are expected to take as part of their degree. Kwok-Wing consolidates and complements what is taught during lectures by working through concrete examples and giving feedback on assignments. This year he also delivered a `skills session‘ (an extended tutorial) to around 150 students for some of first year modules.

Kwok-Wing had a childhood dream of becoming a school teacher before discovering his interest in number theory. He explains that he enjoys teaching and is glad to have found a career path that can combine the two.

Kwok-Wing explained he was very fortunate to have met many brilliant teachers who played a pivotal role in sparking his interest in mathematics. He says taking a leaf out of their books and sharing it with his own students is, for him, the best way to express his gratitude.