The teaching portfolio which she submitted as part of her nomination, entitled “From Accountant to Educator: A Non-taxing Teaching Journey”, contained a description of her teaching philosophy and the various projects which she has undertaken in her teaching journey. Her teaching philosophy is based on three principles, namely understanding student learning, curriculum development and responding to employer expectations.

Ms Van Oordt believes that educators have an obligation to understand the way in which students learn. Only when educators understand the way in which students approach their learning, they can implement innovative teaching strategies to address the needs of the students. She further believes that it is important to develop and implement an undergraduate taxation curriculum which is based on educational principles. Although her professional qualification as a chartered accountant assists her with the content of the curriculum, she also spent time to understand and base her content delivery methods on educational principles.

It is furthermore important to facilitate the learning of intellectually-credible curricula that are responsive to emerging local, national and international perspectives, and achieving generic learning outcomes. Ms Van Oordt therefore believes that it is important to prepare graduates for the job market which they will enter after graduation. In order to do this, different projects was undertaken to understand the expectations of future employers and to make sure that these expectations are addressed in teaching strategies.

Each project which Ms Van Oordt undertook is strongly influenced by each of the three principles of her teaching philosophy. Where applicable, she also documented the various projects in research articles and presented it at conferences or submitted it for publication.