teachers

June 6, 2024

Best of the best

They are voracious learners who instruct and inspire their students and have an impact that lasts a lifetime. Meet this year’s recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Award and Excellence in Teaching Awards.


November 26, 2023

A culture of learning

A new cohort of Indigenous students in the College of Education is ushering in an early-learning program that puts language and culture first.


December 4, 2021

Red footed booby, a brown bird with a blue face and bright red webbed feet, carrying greens in its beak

Closing the distance

For a teacher in a time of COVID-19, the challenge is to bring the world to students.


March 9, 2021

Standing tall

He went from the UW to professional basketball and back. But it’s in the special education classroom that Anthony Washington, ’16, ’19, is making a lasting difference.


June 11, 2020

Screen gems

Sheltering in place against the novel coronavirus prevented us from photographing our Teachers of the Year as we always do—in person. So we captured them the way students saw them during spring quarter.


June 4, 2018

Best lesson ever

What if your class schedule put you in a room with all of this year's best teachers?


June 1, 2017

Of the highest grade

Celebrating the 2017 teachers of the year.


June 1, 2016

Best of the best

They play racquetball. Were college DJs. Starred in Alice in Wonderland. Love to paraglide, run, cook, write and travel. Here’s your chance to meet our teachers of the year.


June 1, 2015

Top teachers

They walk into a classroom that is filled with a sea of anxious faces. Expectations run high. They take a deep breath and off they go—the process of molding students into scholars is what teachers do everyday. With the greatest of ease? Hardly. Only some have the chops to rise above the rest. Introducing this year’s best of the best.


Editor's Eye: Aha

The best teachers get under our skin, in a good way. They get us up in the morning when we would rather linger in bed after a late night because who would want to miss that infectious enthusiasm? Our favorite teachers make us think and grow and smile. And they push us.


December 1, 2014

Curriculum inventor

As Carrie Tzou wondered how biology—her major—could be more engaging, she decided to see how she could design ways to improve teaching. Today, it is her career focus.


June 1, 2014

Teachers of the year

Why do we come to the UW? To learn. Lucky for us, we had the chance to meet the exceptional teachers honored here. They didn’t just teach us course material or put us on the path to a career. They inspired us. Challenged us. Pushed us. Opened our minds. Made us be our best.


December 1, 2013

Solid lesson plan

Instead of pondering why kids fall behind, the UW’s approach stacks the deck in their favor by looking at the factors that may have unexpected effects on performance, ranging from social and cultural to physical and emotional.


June 1, 2013

The inspirers

The 2013 recipients of the UW’s teaching awards are from fields ranging from philosophy to fisheries, but they all know how to inspire their students.


June 1, 2012

Top teachers

The 2012 recipients of this University of Washington’s prestigious teaching awards may be from fields ranging from social work to surgery, but one thing they have in common is their ability to inspire students.


March 1, 2012

Belief in teaching

A passion for excellence in education led to a career as a UW professor and now an administrator.


September 1, 2011

Boost for Head Start

Two UW College of Education researchers, both with previous classroom experience, are going to find out which teaching and learning practices are best for kids in Head Start.


June 1, 2011

2011's top teachers

The seven recipients of the Distinguished Teaching Award and the one recipient of the Marsha L. Landolt Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award cover the spectrum of subject matter.


December 1, 2010

Teaching moment

Two UW instructors are using a $200,000 grant to study teaching methods regarding the Elwha River and the upcoming removal of its two dams.


March 1, 2010

New approach to learning

Rob Thomas, '93, was named the 2009 Outstanding Baccalaureate Colleges U.S. Professor of the Year by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement for Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.