Charlotte Boyd, cancer research PhD student and graduate teaching assistant at Sheffield Hallam University, shares her tips for obtaining an associate fellowship while studying for a PhD.
Alongside your PhD, you may have the opportunity to do some teaching. Your university may offer graduate teaching schemes or similar which will allow you to work towards a teaching qualification.
Associate Fellowship is a teaching qualification which you can work towards and is accredited by Advance HE, an organisation that works with groups across the world to improve higher education (HE) for staff, students and the wider society. Associate Fellowship professionally recognises people whose HE teaching and supporting learning practice meets the professional standards framework (PSF), which measures teaching and learning success within HE. The qualification is great if you are considering a future in teaching but even if you are not, it shows your personal development and contribution to teaching within HE.
If you have a chance to apply for the fellowship, I recommend you do. Here are some tips which I used when applying for Associate Fellow.
1. Find out about the teaching course
The first thing I recommend is asking around to see if your institution is accredited by Advance HE and has a course to work towards Fellowship. If they do, send an email to the person in charge as soon as possible because these courses often have a long wait time. This way you can show your enthusiasm for the course and be notified if a space becomes available. It can also be good to check if you meet the requirements for the course and to start working towards them now.
2. Keep a teaching journal
When you begin teaching in higher education it is useful to keep a record of what teaching you have done and what support you have provided students. It is useful to reflect on each teaching experience you have so you can identify how successful it was.
Some questions you can ask yourself after each teaching session could be: What worked well and what didn’t? Did students engage with the activity? How many students attended the session? Did students have any verbal feedback? Did the students find the session useful? How did the session go in general?
Jotting down some notes and reflections can help you develop your teaching technique and approach. It is also useful to document what teaching experience you have so you can reflect back on it at a later stage, such as when applying for a job. I also like to note down who else I was working with within lab demonstrations and whether I liked their technique or way of explaining something.
3. Watch someone else within your department teach
As part of your portfolio, you may need to observe someone else teach within your department. You could ask a lecturer whose teaching style you are interested in learning more about, your supervisor, or someone who you have taught alongside. It can be a valuable experience watching someone else teach and you may find a technique or an activity that you would like to try with your own students.
4. Ask someone to act as your referee
It is important to have someone you trust as your referee. This person may have to observe and give feedback on your teaching. When arranging your teaching observation, make sure that you do it well in advance. Some examples of people you could ask to be your referee include your supervisor, or a lecturer you work closely with in your department.
5. Hit the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) dimensions
To gain your Associate Fellowship, you need to highlight that you have hit the PSF Dimensions and the three Descriptor 1 criteria. These Dimensions are Areas of Activity, Core Knowledge, and Professional Values. Hitting them can a tricky job, but I recommend looking closely at the guidance documents – even printing them out and highlighting the mandatory ones that you need to evidence to achieve Associate Fellowship.
After this, go through your teaching journal and align your experiences with the PSF Dimensions and Descriptor 1 criteria. Write out your example and then add the PSF Dimension in brackets at the end of the sentence so that you know which one you have covered. Once you have written out your teaching experiences with the Dimensions/Descriptors, you will be able to see which ones you have covered and which areas you still need to focus on.
6. Completing your portfolio and working on feedback
If you are undertaking the Fellowship through your accredited institution, you may have an associated portfolio to fill in to evidence your teaching. Completing your portfolio can be time consuming, although it is worth it! If your university offers a writing retreat or similar for your teaching course, make sure you attend it. This is a great way to get some support from people who are familiar with Advance HE and the way your portfolio needs to be completed to achieve Associate Fellowship.
I recommend you attend these sessions with a good draft already completed so you can get the most out of your writing retreat. Alternatively, if a writing retreat is not available, politely ask someone with knowledge of the Associate Fellowship application process to read through your work and give you some feedback. Before submitting your portfolio, make sure all parts are completed and that any attachments or referee statements are also included.
Completing the Associate Fellowship application process was very rewarding and developed my understanding of teaching within HE. I enjoyed the process of reflecting on my teaching practices, and it has further encouraged me to improve and work on my teaching technique.
Charlotte Boyd is a third year PhD student studying diabetes and colorectal cancer. She has a keen interest in teaching and obtained her Associate Fellowship in March 2023. You can find her on LinkedIn here.
Having reached 200,000 Fellows we’re currently celebrating our Festival of Fellowship, where Fellows from around the world share the impact it’s had on them and their institution – find out more.
If you want to apply for any of our four categories of Fellowship, our Introduction to Fellowship e-learning course can provide the guidance you need – learn more.
