CFT Teaching Guides Week: Day 4
Day 4: Peer Review of Teaching
Today’s featured guide is fresh off the presses (so to speak) and is making its debut today on the CFT website: Peer Review of Teaching. Written by CFT Assistant Director, Dr. Joe Bandy, this teaching guide establishes a framework for talking about and engaging in peer review in teaching at higher education institutions.
Peer review is a widely accepted benchmark for the evaluation of scholarly research across disciplines and can set a standard for subsequent assessments of careers, departments, and institutions. Peer review is also the means by which scholars receive expert feedback on their intellectual contributions, which helps them refine their ideas and communication strategies. If we put this much stock into peer review for scholarly research, how can it be applied to teaching in higher education?
This teaching guide seeks to answer the what, why, and how questions regarding peer review of teaching: What is it? Why is it important? How do we do it effectively? In that process, Peer Review of Teaching conducts an in-depth examination of what an effective model for peer review in teaching looks like and provides the tools for individual faculty, departments, and institutions to adopt this model. Even graduate students looking to develop a strong teaching portfolio for the job market could benefit from taking a look at this teaching guide.
Such tools for an effective model for peer review in teaching include: how to select peer reviewers, establishing departmental goals for student learning and effective disciplinary teaching, how to conduct a peer observation, how to provide feedback, and how to assess a teaching portfolio. How do these recommendations for peer review of teaching resonate with your experiences with teaching evaluation?
As always, we appreciate your feedback, so if you would like to share your experiences and/or advice and resources with us, please do so in the comment section below!
Featured Image: “Teach/Learn,” Duane Schoon, Flickr (CC-BY)
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