About the Project Team
Forward Thinking: Teaching & Learning Philosophy in Australian Universities is funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council via a Discipline-Based Initiative Grant. The project is also suppported by the Australasian Association of Philosophy. It builds on an earlier project - Phase 1: A detailed proposal for a discipline-based investigation Forward Thinking: Learning & Teaching Philosophy in Australian Universities, which developed a detailed plan for the Discipline Based Investigation itself, and built a suitable research team. The Carrick Institute of Teaching and Learning (since renamed the Australian Learning and Teaching Council Ltd) funded Phase 1.
The principal aim of the project was to record the state of tertiary teaching of philosophy in Australia and to provide benchmarking data on philosophy at the following levels: the teaching academics, the structure and composition of the philosophy major, and the teaching of philosophy from first year or “service” units/ subjects, through the Honours year and into postgraduate study. A further aim of the project was to continue to build networks of those philosophers interested in strategies for enhancing the curriculum and in enhancing their teaching practice. It is anticipated that this information will be used (by Heads or discipline conveners an others) in the benchmarking and planning of their own program, as well as by the profession for sharing elements/cases of best practice.
Project deliveriables include:
- A series of reports including the Final Report and Summary Reports on key issues.
- These reports are supported by a series of datasets.
- A series of case studies on innovative practices, including summaries of issues raised at Round Table Discussions and ALTC citation winners in philosophy.
Project Objectives
- To provide the ALTC, DASSH, the AAP and Philosophy Departments with a picture of Philosophy at undergraduate, honours, postgraduate and staff level.
- To identify the challenges facing the discipline over the next decades.
- To identify examples of innovative teaching and assessment (best practice) and areas for further investigation (including mechanisms for the distribution of information about best practice within the discipline). The project raises a number of questions: Amongst the current practices in the discipline, which can be identified as genuinely excellent? How is excellence in the teaching of philosophy to be measured? What steps can be taken now to develop excellence in future practice?
To identify some key areas for future planning for the development of learning and teaching in Philosophy.
| Lead Institution | Flinders University |
| Partner Institutions | Macquarie University |
| University of New South Wales | |
| University of Tasmania | |
| Australasian Association of Philosophy |
The project commenced in July 2008 and was completed in February 2010.
Acknowledgments
The project team gratefully acknowledges the assistance of Heads of Philosophy Programs, discipline conveners and members of the profession for providing useful feedback about the Project in its formative evaluation, and responding to the survey(s) and requests for data in a spirited and frank manner. Specific thanks to Professor Graham Oppy (AAP Council and Monash University) and Associate Professor Nick Smith (Macquarie University) who evaluated the survey prior to distribution to Heads of Philosophy Programs. The project team would also like to thank those who attended the round table discussions held in Sydney and Adelaide and shared strategies and ideas relating to their teaching practices, and to those institutions for hosting the meetings.
