Premios docentes con impacto: más allá del reconocimiento a la excelencia

Teacher awards are dynamic instruments to develop institutional initiatives and promote quality in teaching. In Spain his career has less history and little has been published about it, however in central Europe and in Anglo-Saxon countries the awards have been part of higher education for several decades. After years of awarding awards, institutions want to know if they are changing the perception about the importance of university teaching and how they should be designed so that in addition to recognizing and honoring teaching excellence, they also promote the systematic development of the culture of learning in the organization , as well as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). In this article we review the bibliography on the initiatives of excellence in teaching and specifically the awards for excellence in teaching; The concepts of excellence underlying the awards and the advantages and challenges derived from their implementation are shown. There is evidence that the teaching awards that are not only awarded to recognize an exemplary teaching career but also promote the development of transformative projects, have a greater impact not only on individual teacher development but also on the collective and institutional level. An example shown is the Zurich University of Teacher Education Teacher Development Award. Finally, some recommendations for its implementation are presented.