Peer Observation of Teaching

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Peer Observation of Teaching Models and Processes
Carol McGuinness with Chris Gibbons School of
Psychology Queens University Belfast Funded by
National Teaching Fellowship 2000 LTSN
Psychology mini-project 2002
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Peer Review of Teaching
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Conceptual Map of Peer Review Practices
General Review
Peer evaluation for promotion for subject
review for qualifications for membership
for probation
Teaching Portfolios Reflective memos Teaching
Rationales Teaching Review Days Teaching
Circles Assessment Review Team Teaching
Formative Developmental
Summative Evaluative
Peer appraisal Peer evaluation
Peer coaching Peer tutoring Peer
mentoring Peer observation
Classroom Observation
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Peer Observation of Teaching (POT)

• Lecturers pair up and observe one another in
  classroom settings (lectures, tutorials,
  laboratory classes, one-to-one supervisions)
• Three stages the POT cycle
• Pre-meeting where purposes of observation are
  exchanged
• Observation
• Post-meeting for feedback, reflection and future
  actions

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A bit of history

• Early 1990s - low base
• Impact subject review
• Formal qualifications for teaching in HE
• Funding and special initiatives
• Sharing Excellence (Nottingham Trent)
• DEVELOP (POT for language teaching)
• LTSN Escalate
• LTSN Generic
• Increase in volume of activities

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Impact of POT (from a volunteer group)

• Reassurance
• Feedback on innovations
• Revealing hidden behaviour
• Testing unease
• Addressing known problems
• Learning as observer
• Putting teaching into the public domain
• Blackwell McLean (1996)

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Impact of POT scheme (in preparation for subject
review)

• Large numbers involved
• Increased levels of confidence
• Feedback stimulating and rewarding
• Opportunity for social networking
• Willingness to try out new methods
• Unforeseen time and effort involved
• One third did not participate
• Best when good relations exist between reviewer
  and reviewed
• Perceived as a threat and were suspicious of
  intentions
• Insensitivity in giving feedback
• Special attention needs to be given to training
• (Martin Double, 1998 Costello et al., 2001)

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A closer look at processes

• Peer observation - who is a peer?
• same grade colleagues
• mentoring relationships
• senior/junior colleagues
• Different models are implied expert/novice,
  mentoring
• Dyads, triads, internal or external members (to
  the school/department)?
• Confidentiality vs sharing practice

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Three Stage POT Cycle
Pre Meet
Observation
Post Meet
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Good practice - but.

• Can become just a routine
• Become rushed and mechanical
• Frequent participation in the same format
• Diminishing returns in terms of professional
  development

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Four Stage Reflection Cycle
Reflection In Writing Focus on
own Teaching (after being observed and acting
as observer)
Observation
Post Meet
Pre Meet
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What we have done so far?

• Designed the tool (hard copy and electronic
  form)
• Asked for volunteers (psychologists and others)
• Use it as part of their regular POT activity and
  send us back what they have written (anonymity
  assured)
• We have full responses from 10 colleagues on the
  first version, and another 6/7 on second version
• We are particularly interested in nature of the
  reflective writing and what it reveals about peer
  observation as a professional development
  experience

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Focus on Method Linking teaching method and
student learning Example 1 Tutorial with 20
students, 2 hours (after being observed) On the
whole the session went well. The opening
ice-breaker and use of short activities
intermittently helped to involve students and
provide respites from teacher talk/exposition.
Aim to maintain this balance of
activities. the use of the two minute pauses
(that turned into ten minutes) to stop and take
questions worked well. It allowed students to
voice their observations and in so doing to test
their understanding, and it worked well when I
was asked a question to open it up to others to
see how they might help with answering the
question Moving around the class and working
from the OHP, using video clips and the hand-out
added small but important variation in my
teaching style because the variation helped to
sustain concentration.
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Focus on performance Example 2 Lecture to 150
students, 2 hours with a 10 minute break) (after
being observed) Peer observer commented on my
strengths. I moved around and made good use of
hand movements and eye contact. I wasnt afraid
to use pauses. I asked about the power point
presentation itself and he replied that the
overall session was well structured and packed
with information and points, the slides were
clear and very readable. He did agree that I
rushed at the end and commented that towards the
end I was flagging from covering so exhaustively
so much information. I found the
post-observation meeting useful. I felt
reassured about my slides being informative and
not vague.The suggested improvements were
useful and doable. I will endeavor to try to
incorporate these strategies into my lectures.

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Focus on conceptions of teaching and
learning Example 3 Talking about his own teaching
after observing a 2-hour lecture So, whilst the
teachers role is to help students learn, the
best they can do this (in a lecture) is to offer
good explanations of relevant materials, both in
terms of the topic and the types of learning
(e.g., description, evaluation, analysis, etc)
they are expected to demonstrate, rather than to
pack into a class all the information or nearly
all the information they need about the content
and the nuances of studies and theories. Arguably
more important still is if the lecturer is able
to leave the students wanting more.
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Another focus on conceptions of teaching and
learning Example 4 Context Discussion with
colleague after being observed said she was
surprised at how basic and simple I had made the
lecture. She felt it was verging on being too
elementary and slow. This led to an interesting
discussion on what a lecture is for. I tend to
put the onus on the student researching the
detail in private study because I want to
increase their autonomy. feels she must give
the detail in order to be sure that they know the
material properly. She would worry what would
happen if the student didnt do the background
work. The two approaches are valid, and each
favours a particular type of student, I guess.
But they do show two different underlying
philosophies too, so we had a great discussion
about that. I decided to try to move closer to
her model and she to mine.
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A somewhat different focus Example 5 Context
After observing a lecture (with a difficult
group of male students) g I was amazed at the
poor level of discipline and the aggression,
hostility and rudeness of the students. I was
also amazed at (colleagues name). ..She
showed true authority and got everyone on-task
pretty quickly. She also managed to get them
talking and asking questions. This made me
reflect on how none of my sessions could every
work with such a bunch of students. She had to
work hard to convince them that writing is
important. There were lots of issues about
authority, but she dealt with them every well.
This reminded me how complacent I am I always
assume the students are going to pay attention to
me because I am me! Could I overcome real
hostility?
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Broadening the scope and range of what is
reflected on.

• Reflection can reveal the conception of learning
  and teaching that is dominant at the time
  performance, transmission, interactivity,
  student autonomy
• Processes of observation biases attention to what
  is observable performance, technique, method
  rather than on goals, intentions, understandings
• Questions and prompts for reflection can
  inadvertently bias the discussion/writing
• e.g. what would you do differently next time?
• in what ways did the session illustrate
  what you consider good
  teaching to be?

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Would you like to participate in the
project? c.gibbons_at_qub.ac.uk