Advance HE supports individual professional development to raise the quality and status of your teaching, allowing staff to keep up to date with the best practice in learning and teaching.
With you can enhance your own teaching practice and gain international recognition as a high quality teaching professional by:
- Becoming a Fellow, an internationally recognised badge of professional success;
- Access to a global teaching and learning community and networks;
- Completion of training courses run by Advance HE will develop your strategic thinking and leadership.
Fellowship and professional standards
Fellowship demonstrates a personal and institutional commitment to professionalism in learning and teaching in higher education. Across four categories, from Associate to Principal, Fellowship provides individuals with recognition of their practice, impact and leadership of teaching and learning. Fellowships are embedded in the UK and have been adopted by increasing numbers of higher education institutions globally, from the Americas to Australasia.
With more than 124,000 Fellows across the world, Fellowship is an internationally recognised badge of professional success for those who teach and support learning in higher education.
Fellowship brings you a range of benefits:
- Consolidates personal development and evidence of professional practice in your higher education career;
- Provides a valuable measure of success and is increasingly recognised by international institutions;
- Demonstrates commitment to teaching, learning and the student experience, through engagement in a practical process that encourages research, reflection and development;
- Fellowship is increasingly sought by employers across the education sector as a condition of appointment and promotion;
- For individuals, to identify their expertise with the entitlement to use post-nominal letters (AFHEA, FHEA, SFHEA, PFHEA);
- Provides institutional assurance that Fellowships are an important indicator that your institution is fully aligned with Professional Standards Framework (PSF) practice and a badge of assured quality throughout your institution.
You will find Fellows around the world:
The four categories of Fellowship
There are four categories of Fellowship, these are:
Associate Fellow
Individuals applying for Associate Fellowship may be fairly new to a role in teaching and/or support for learning or may have a limited teaching portfolio; for example, some sessional/ part time staff or early career researchers with some teaching responsibilities. They may be new or experienced staff with specific roles in supporting HE learning such as technicians, librarians, professional staff, learning technologists, careers advisors, etc. It is not role dependent; you will need to explore whether you have sufficient evidence of appropriate teaching and or/support for learning practice to make a successful application.
Fellow
Fellowship is the appropriate category of fellowship to professionally recognise individuals from a wide variety of different contexts whose practice with learners has ‘breadth and depth’, enabling them to evidence all PSF 2023 Dimensions. This might be staff with substantive teaching responsibilities or professional staff with responsibilities to support HE learning across all Dimensions. It is not role dependent; you will need to explore whether you have sufficient evidence of appropriate teaching and or/support for learning practice at the ‘depth and breadth’ required to make a successful application.
Senior Fellow
Senior Fellows lead and influence academic practice and higher education learning in a many different settings. Working with and through ‘others’ (e.g. colleagues, peers, mentees, etc.) they operate to support, guide and initiate change or lead / influence enhancement of practice in a wide range of global contexts. Their contribution is effective, benefitting students and their learning experiences in a variety of ways.
Senior Fellowship is not role dependent and there are many different contexts in which you might be leading and/or influencing the practice of others. You will need to explore whether you have sufficient evidence to meet the requirements of Descriptor 3.
Senior Fellowship is not role dependent and there are many different contexts in which you might be leading and/or influencing the practice of others. You will need to explore whether you have sufficient evidence to meet the requirements of Descriptor 3.
Principal Fellow
Principal Fellowship is not role dependent. Within your context, you will need to explore whether you have the extensive evidence of impact on high quality learning, at a strategic level, that is the basis for a successful application. For Principal Fellowship you need to be able to:
+ demonstrate a sustained record of effectiveness in strategic leadership of high quality learning; and
+ show that your leadership has had extensive impact.
Principal Fellows are a diverse community representing the full range of strategic leadership in higher education. For example, you may work in academic departments, professional or service departments, on senior or executive leadership teams, for a professional body, as independent consultants, or in other roles with impact on learning and teaching in Higher Education.
In order to evidence the ‘sustained’ and ‘effective’ nature of your work you need to explain the rationale and process of your work and evidence the impact resulting from it over a period of five to seven years.
+ demonstrate a sustained record of effectiveness in strategic leadership of high quality learning; and
+ show that your leadership has had extensive impact.
Principal Fellows are a diverse community representing the full range of strategic leadership in higher education. For example, you may work in academic departments, professional or service departments, on senior or executive leadership teams, for a professional body, as independent consultants, or in other roles with impact on learning and teaching in Higher Education.
In order to evidence the ‘sustained’ and ‘effective’ nature of your work you need to explain the rationale and process of your work and evidence the impact resulting from it over a period of five to seven years.
Our new Fellowship Category Tool has been designed to help you to reflect on your practice.
After you have answered a series of choice questions, which will take around 10-20 minutes, you will be shown your results and a PDF report summarising your responses will be sent to you. You will be able to use this to understand which category of Fellowship most closely reflects your current practice and to reflect on your ongoing professional development and career aspirations.
Professional Development and Training Programmes
Advance HE professional development and training programmes can be tailored to reflect a particular discipline or challenging area. They are linked to the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) and support those aiming for the global recognition of Fellowship.
CERTIFICATE IN LEARNING AND TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION (CLTHE) - Flagship Programme
A professional development programme that provides staff with a comprehensive understanding of the theory and practice of teaching and learning in higher education. It is designed to support staff who are experts in their subject area, but who may have limited formal training in teaching and learning. The certificate is linked to the PSF, meaning that those completing the programme will be well placed to apply for Fellowship.
Plus choose from Advance HE programmes and events around the following areas:
Online training courses
Anticipating the time pressures of working life, participants are now able to engage with Advance HE training remotely through the new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), providing access to tutors and course materials online. Courses focus on key issues such as transforming assessment and feedback, and leading through change. They offer the benefit of networking with an international cohort of colleagues, whilst providing a cost effective way of improving teaching skills.
Fellowship Workshops
Advance HE offers workshops to help you apply for Fellowship, by reflecting on your practice and development needs, as well as sharing good practice. The workshops can be delivered face-to-face, virtually or via a blended approach, to suit requirements.
Enhancing Student Success Workshops
These workshops, provide the opportunity for you to engage in one of the Advance HE frameworks that underpin student success, understanding its rationale and content, and how to apply it in practice. Each framework provides a reference point for your institution to review and enhance policies and practice across a range of disciplines, modes of study and international contexts:
- Transforming Assessment and Feedback
- Embedding Employability
- Student Access, Retention, Attainment and Progression
- Student Engagement through Partnership
- Internationalising Higher Education
- Flexible Leaning in Higher Education.
Fellowship Application Builder
A six-week online, self-directed course designed to enable individuals to use their experience of their teaching and supporting learning practice in higher education to develop a direct application for Fellowship
Record of Strategic Educational Impact (RSEI)
A support session aimed at those who are starting the process of completing their Principal Fellow direct application and who need more guidance on the Record of Educational Impact (REI) element.
Teaching Skills Masterclasses
Designed to address your needs. For example:
- getting started in your first teaching role
- preparing to lead learning and teaching
- innovative pedagogies in particular disciplines
- curriculum design
- encouraging active learning
- enhancing learning through technology.