Student essay competition - 2010

The Prize: Give us your thoughts in an essay of around 1000 words and you could win £300. The winner will also be invited to attend (all expenses paid) the Higher Education Academy’s 2-day Annual Conference which will be held in Hertfordshire from 22-23 June 2010 Higher Education Academy conference.

Please note: to be eligible for competitions:

• Students must be registered with and following a course of study in medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine, at undergraduate level in a UK Higher Education Institution.
• Staff must be teaching on a UK based programme of medicine, dentistry or veterinary medicine.

We will check your status with your local Nominated Primary Contact.

Students: Entry details

The Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry & Veterinary Medicine is offering students the chance to submit their thoughts in an essay (of around 1,000 words).

The 2010 title is “Constructively describe your experience of receiving feedback, with suggestions for ways in which feedback might be improved.”

Deadline for entries: Thursday 1 April 2010.

Students: Criteria

Submitted essays will be assessed against the following criteria and should:

• Answer the question by constructively describing your experience of receiving feedback, and suggest ways that you think that feedback could be realistically improved. This could include feedback in teaching sessions, from peers, on written work, in clinical settings, etc.
• Give the reader an overview of the factors that led to your answer.
• Define and differentiate between your expectations and your experience to date.
• Include examples of good and/or innovative feedback methods you’re experiencing in your course.
• Be sensitive to cultural, contextual and institutional differences (i.e. it should not expose particular individuals or openly criticise an individual department).
• Provide an individual and honest account.
• As far as you can, see things from others’ viewpoints and provide potentially perceptive observations and helpful ideas for teaching staff when giving you feedback.
• Be entertaining and interesting to read.
• Be well written in terms of structure, grammar and spelling.
• Not to exceed 1000 word limit by more than 10% either way.
• Be submitted on the application form in electronic format.

NB: A glowing report may be pleasant to read but we anticipate that a thorough, fair exposition of what you found, if critical, fully argued and explained is the most likely to win high marks from the judges. Be creative!

Please complete the entry form / template below, by the deadline above.

The winner will be notified by email on or before the end of May 2010.

To view previous winners of the essay competition see page 18 of Newsletter 01.20 and examples from the GMC student competition on the GMC website (also in a booklet version).

This call is now closed, successful applicants will be shown on this page once confirmed.

Successful applications will be listed after that close date and review process is completed.