Veterinary educators: Are you turning “lemons into lemonade”?

Calling all educators: Your distance learning innovation could make you a winner!

During this unprecedented time, veterinary educators who are used to teaching in a classroom environment have been tasked with developing creative new ways to instruct their students online. VetMedAcademy (VMA) and the Merck Veterinary Manual want to celebrate—and reward—those educators who are “turning lemons into lemonade” during COVID-19.

VMA and Merck Veterinary Manual are co-sponsoring a contest to recognize those who have “discovered and deployed innovative online approaches to reaching and encouraging interaction with their distant students,” according to a press release.

All topics about veterinary medicine and/or animal health are welcomed, and all faculty, resident, intern or other instructors in veterinary or veterinary technology programs are eligible to apply. Student nominations and/or documentation of student support of an instructor and their online instruction will also be considered.

“We are looking for ways that you might have gone beyond a simple recording of your normal lecture presentations to ways that you both educated and engaged your students, even including externally available resources,” according to the release.

Submissions must be equivalent to a teaching on a single topic (including the content of one or more lectures). If creativity among submissions is deemed equivalent, those that are more broadly applicable will be considered more favorably.

Prizes (in the form of Amazon gift cards) for contest winners are as follows:

• First place: $1,000
• Second place: $750
• Third place: $500
• 4th through 8th places: $200 each

Submissions are due by June 15, 2020, with winners chosen by July 8, 2020.

All suitable submissions, regardless of whether they are selected as winners, will be shared on VetMedAcademy.org.

Click here for more information about how to participate in this contest.