About the EFS Philosophy of Teaching and Learning
The ‘Philosophy of Teaching and Learning’ (‘Philosophy’ for short) will form the second text in your application for an Advance HE Fellowship through the ANU Educational Fellowship Scheme (EFS) Reflection on Experience (REx) pathway.
Word limit and main message/s
In no more than 400 words, you will be asked to describe your Philosophy. Your Philosophy underpins the way you teach or support learning, your beliefs, intentions, and actions. This brief statement should convey your overall view of your approaches to teaching and supporting learning.
The Philosophy provides your reader with a background to your practice, and is not reviewed against the Professional Standards Framework (PSF). You do not need to link to the PSF in this text, and it cannot be used for extra word length / to supplement other application components with evidence of effective practice.
A good Philosophy is:
- personal, reflective and honest;
- free of technical jargon;
- written in the first person and present tense.
Teaching philosophy statements clearly communicate what our fundamental beliefs are about teaching and learning; why we hold these beliefs; and, how we put them into practice.
Why we ask you to write a Philosophy
Through this exercise, you are asked to reflect on your approaches to teaching and supporting learning in higher education, and think about what being an educator means to you. We believe that reflection on your approaches and values as an educator will aid your professional development: it is a great way to start your EFS application process.
The Philosophy is the second text that your application reviewers will read, and it will help them gain a clear picture of what drives you as an educator as well as contextualise the reflective narratives that follow. You may find you elaborate on your Philosophy when you come to reflect on values in the reflective narratives.
When to write your Philosophy
While this will be one of the first texts in your application, you do not have to write it first! Some applicants find it useful to write the other components of their application before finalising their Philosophy, and that’s fine. If you choose to do this, we do recommend that you keep the question prompts [link to next section] in mind as you write the other texts in your application, and perhaps jot down some notes that you can revisit when you are ready to write your Philosophy.
Some of you will already have a written Philosophy, e.g. because you previously applied for an Advance HE fellowship through the ANU EFS or because you participated in a professional development program such as ‘Exploring Learning and Teaching’ or ‘Advancing Learning and Teaching’. This is great, and you can use this text for your application. However, if it has been a while since you wrote your Philosophy, we do encourage you to revisit and possibly update it. In the time that has passed, we expect you will have evolved as an educator, and your Philosophy might have changed along the way.
Photo of Dr. Marina Iskhakova, taken by Rafael Florez from the ANU Centre for Learning and Teaching