By Matt Carre and Briana Chapple
Elevate spoke with Matt Carre about the peer observation scheme in Mechanical Engineering. He gave us some of his key insights about the process, how it got started and what the response has been.
What was the catalyst for starting this?
I was being asked to take part in teaching observations as a senior colleague, as part of new staff requirements, enrolments on the Post-Graduate Certificate for Teaching & Learning in HE, and found this to be a really useful learning experience for myself.
It was initially part of the NSS Action Plan.
We wanted to support consistent quality teaching across the department.
How did you get started and what was the response?
We were very clear that we did not want this to be used as a management tool, so it does not form part of SRDS or promotions, and observation feedback is not formally checked.
We started with a pilot programme in the Autumn semester of 2018 with six staff who were all teaching in the first semester, and were generally a random sample. We gathered feedback from them on the usefulness of the experience, the format, the learning gained and whether this would be worth extending to the whole department.
The feedback was largely positive; most staff felt that although there was a small workload commitment, it was useful to see how others teach and to get feedback on your own teaching. Some wanted it to be done multiple times a year.
This feedback was shared and discussed at an Away Day in January 2019 before being formally implemented. We decided on one round of observations per year, in the hope that over the years colleagues would see multiple people teach.
There was good uptake in the first iteration of it, and the ongoing feedback from surveys and anecdotally was positive.
This year has been more challenging, but interestingly it was continued quite strongly through the pandemic - during that period, we adapted the model so that colleagues could use it to gain peer feedback on their new online methods of teaching (e.g. watching videos that had been pre-recorded).
How does it work?
Colleagues undertake one observation per year, as observee, and one as observer. The core principles and protocols are set out at the beginning.
Rather than pairs of staff observing one another, they give feedback to each other in peer observation ‘families’, which are usually decided based on who teaches in the same semester. It’s not reciprocal, but a circular pattern of observation so that you observe a different member of staff than who observes you.
We try to organise it so that everyone sees a range of people over the years rather than observing the same colleagues.
It is all organised centrally in the department, and we provide a feedback template to staff to minimise additional work. They need only find a time to do the observation and a quick feedback meeting between the two parties for each session.
There is a central tracker where staff tick whether or not they have undertaken their observation each year, and reminder emails are sent for those who haven’t, with clear responsibilities for who needs to do what (as the observer, and the observee).
What has been the impact?
It’s quite hard to measure this directly, and we haven’t set about deliberately analysing the impact in any systematic way using ‘hard’ data, but generally staff who have done it are positive about what they have learned from it. In general terms our student satisfaction ratings for teaching have been rising in recent years (taking into account a pandemic-related dip) and this activity is thought to be one driver of that improvement.
Any particular challenges?
The biggest challenge staff report is finding the time, especially currently with hybrid working when two people may not be on campus at the same time. In saying that, most staff have not found it especially time consuming and those who have found it valuable feel like it is contributing to their work, not creating more work.
Organising the sessions could be a factor, but we’ve tried to make this easier by doing much of this centrally and sending out information about who is observing who and so on.
What were the benefits?
Making teaching ‘visible’ to other staff, as in a university this can often be an individual practice.
We are a large department, and this is another way of making more staff connections (especially important with hybrid working with fewer in-person staff interactions).
Some staff, myself included, have used extracts from feedback in promotions cases or for SRDS (though this is not required, the information can be volunteered by the observee to help with conversations).
It is a safe way to experiment with something new or to approach something differently.
More consistent baseline for quality teaching.
Anything else that you think departments might consider?
Some staff have asked about training for observations. I think offering this as an option might be useful but we do not want to make this mandatory, and add to the list of things staff have to do.
If you or someone from your department are interested in piloting a peer observation scheme, please feel free to contact elevate@sheffield.ac.uk if you would like to discuss how you might go about this, and for resources you might use.
About the authors
Matt is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering, a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and is the Deputy Director of Education for the Faculty of Engineering, dealing mainly with matters concerning Student Experience. He has been lecturing since 2000 and has held various roles in the Department of Mechanical Engineering related to learning and teaching. Matt also leads the Human Interactions Group, a team of researchers concerned with physical interactions between humans and their environment.
Briana is an Academic Development Adviser in Elevate. She is a tutor on the Post-Graduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education, a coordinator on the SOOT programme, University-wide peer observation scheme, and mentoring scheme.