Before the observation

Guidance and a form (PDF and MS Word versions) for the pre-observation stage.

I’m constantly re-using tips, tricks, and methods I’ve observed other people using in my own teaching.

Choose a peer

The first thing you need to do is to choose a peer. You need to decide what School or discipline that peer is from. It can be enormously beneficial to go outside your comfort zone or School to see how teaching is undertaken differently in other parts of the University. Equally, you may prefer to work with someone from within your own area because of the importance of discipline-specific teaching approaches that you would like feedback on.

Meet to discuss

The next thing is to meet with your peer to discuss the teaching you would like to have observed. You should fill out the following form and use it to start your discussion. This asks for some basic information about the teaching session as well as helping both you and your observer to think about what you would like to learn from the observation.

Pre-Observation Form (PDF)

Pre-Observation Form (MS Word)