Most of us experience a significant number of high-stakes peer visits pre-tenure and then never again have a colleague visit our classes. While a pre-tenure criticism may inspire change, the choice to change is more instrumental than a process of collaborative reflection. Moreover, the high stakes of a summative evaluation of our teaching likely has an impact on how we teach when we are visited. In this tidbit, I recommend collaborative, peer teaching dyads or triads as a mechanism for improving all participants’ teaching. The goal is to provide participants with non-judgmental formative feedback, to have all learn both by observing and by receiving such feedback.

In this posting, I suggest three practices that can help insure the experiences are a value-add and approaches to structuring the process and providing feedback. 

Three essential components. First, the peer observations must be completely disconnected from evaluation, i.e., entirely formative and confidential. Second, participation should be voluntary, and each participating teacher should decide what aspect(s) of their teaching they will focus on. Third, observations are reciprocal, all participants observe and are observed.

Recommended process. The participants meet at the outset to discuss the number of visits, the duration of visits (the whole class session or something less?), each participant’s goals for the course they are teaching, approaches to teaching, goals for the course as a whole and for each of the classes to be observed, materials for the class, expectations for student preparation, what students will do during the class, and the teaching methods to be used. Most importantly, they tell one another the specific types of feedback they would like to receive, such as the clarity of the organization, the use of visual aids, the types of questions asked, the level of student engagement during class, etc. 

Feedback. Feedback mostly should be descriptive and non-judgmental, e.g., the text on your slides (were or were not) visible from the back of the room; you asked ____ hypothetical questions, ___ short answer questions, ___ policy questions; you called on ___ women, ___ men, ___ people of color; __ students appeared to be using their computers for activities unrelated to the course; (some, most, or all) students seemed prepared for class; (some, most, or all) students engaged in your small group activity. The pair can then discuss what, if anything, the professor is thinking about doing to improve.