The topic of the latest Teaching Lunch on 15th May was facilitated by Hazel Christie of the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) and focused on the aims, benefits and implementation of Peer Observation of Teaching within the School of Informatics.
This topic was prompted by the recently agreed Teaching Committee Action in which a minimum requirement was set to have teaching observed at least once every 2 years.
https://web.inf.ed.ac.uk/infweb/student-services/ito/staff/peer-observation-teaching
Aims
The aim of Peer Observation of Teaching in Informatics is for personal development purposes to encourage learning from each other and sharing teaching strategies, irrespective of subject area and level of experience.
Discussion
Staff agreed that while it is possible to observe teaching through watching lecture videos and online content, there was a great appreciation of the importance of being in the body of the lecture theatre to get a better sense of how the students are reacting to and engaging with teaching. What are the students doing? Are they taking notes or are they texting or on social media? The observer gets an insight on the mood of the room as a whole.
The general feeling was that the IAD forms serve as good prompts for discussion before, during and after observation; it’s recognised that the forms are to prompt discussion and reflection and there is no requirement for form filling!
It’s accepted that observation is pre-arranged with a light-weight matching process where each lecturer will identify an observer for their teaching. There is no “secret shopper” intention to try to catch anyone out!
In addition to pace and style of delivery of content, other implicit observations on the management of teaching space and mastery of equipment available contribute to the overall result and the benefits for both the observer and the observed is that both may make adaptations to practice as a result of the Peer Observation experience.
The contribution of students to this process is also recognised and encouraged – the Course Evaluation Survey results the previous session are available online to feed into the preparations in advance of the observation taking place.
Actions after the observation
After the observation and both have reflected and discussed the feedback we ask that the lecturer notify the Teaching Organisation that the observation has taken place with the following basic information:
Lecturer name
Observer name
Course
Date of observation
That’s it! The process is for your development and there are benefits to be gained on both sides.
