According to Isabeau Iqbal, an Educational Developer at CTLT, three important ways instructors can grow in their roles are through self-reflection, student feedback and feedback from peers (often called peer review of teaching). “Peer review of teaching is unique, in that, unlike the other two forms of reflection it fosters more openness and a greater sense of community by making teaching public,” she added.
Peer review of teaching is a process whereby instructors receive feedback on, and share reflections about, their teaching. Within the context of higher education, the peer review of teaching has two formats: formative, where the purpose is to support instructors in their professional growth as teachers; and summative, where the purpose is to assess instructors’ teaching as part of a formal reward system linked to the individual’s career advancement (i.e. tenure, promotion and other personnel decisions).
In the formative peer review of teaching process, the instructor being reviewed guides the process, and decides how how the resulting information is used. “For the formative feedback it’s all about development, being aware of your practices and behaviours, but also having the interjection of other people’s ideas into what you’re doing,” said Gail Hammond, a professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems.
“As a reviewer, I certainly feel it’s a privilege to go into another person’s classroom, especially if it’s in a different Faculty, observe their teaching and bring my perspective into a review process. As a reviewee, I think it’s always very informative to hear peers’ perceptions of your teaching and your teaching style,” she added.
Hammond belongs to a group of instructors who make up the formative peer review of teaching team at UBC. Members of this team make themselves available to the university’s teaching community by volunteering their time to perform formative peer reviews, when asked.
According to Majid Doroudi, a senior instructor in the Faculty of Medicine, who is also a peer reviewer, instructing and teaching is a dynamic job. “Every time I go into a class I learn from my students. The same thing happens when I do peer review, as a reviewer or reviewee: I learn new things,” he added.
When Doroudi came to Canada and started working at UBC, he would to visit his colleague’s classes. He says seeing how others presented information in class helped him see ways in which he could teach his courses better. He says formative peer feedback is beneficial in a similar way. The difference is that there’s a mutual learning exchange between reviewer and reviewee.
A formative peer review of teaching starts with an instructor requesting feedback from his or her peers. He or she reaches out to individual members of the peer review of teaching community and they arrange a time to meet. Typically there are two reviewers in the review process: one is a content expert and one looks at the teaching practice alone. Reviewers and reviewee sit down at a pre-observation meeting, where they discuss what type of feedback the reviewee wants from the evaluation as well as possible observation dates.
After a classroom observation of teaching, the reviewer and reviewee debrief, addressing the key points discussed in the pre-observation meeting. The oral feedback normally becomes a written report that can be used however the person being reviewed sees fit.
“It’s for that person’s only and that person can use it however they want. If they want to put it in their teaching dossier they can do that. If they don’t, they don’t have to. It’s theirs. It’s their information only so it doesn’t have to go anywhere,” Hammond explained.
Azita Madadi Noei, a professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems who has been a reviewer since 2014, went through the review process as a reviewee once. At first she felt anxious about the process of being reviewed, but once Noei realized the two reviewers were not there to criticize her and her teaching, she felt much more at ease. “It was actually a very rewarding experience for me once I overcame that anxiety at the beginning.”
Hammond believes the program is particularly beneficial to those people who are starting out in their teaching careers. New instructors can gain from other people who may be mid-stream or nearing retirement and who have a lot of experience behind them. She added, “[peer review of teaching] benefits everybody and not just the people being reviewed but the reviewer.”
To find out more information about the Peer Review of Teaching Initiative or to connect with reviewers, click here.