Step 3 Observing learning and teaching - criteria and methods

Criteria

The criteria of good teaching should emerge from the critical self-assessment carried out by the Department and agreed by teaching staff. The model of a good tutor can vary to some considerable extent between different institutions.

Observation should not become a process of checking performance against a check-list which cannot encompass all the complexities of the teaching situation. Nevertheless some common features do exist across almost all learning situations and these can be used to provide feed back.

Observing learning and teaching

  • Students need to be incorporated into the observation as a matter of courtesy and good practice. Students need to be informed – in advance - about the observation, its purpose and the role of the observer.

The Tutor needs to:

  • prepare the students for the presence of the observer;
  • settle the learning group with the observer present;
  • identify if, in any part of the session, the observer will talk to students;
  • work effectively with the learning group, ignoring the presence of the observer;
  • incorporate the comments of the students in relation to the usefulness of the session (this could be a short discussion; feedback on most/least useful aspects of session; short questionnaire or comments on paper to be collected - process to be agreed with observer).

The observer needs to:

  • be discreet and diplomatic in the learning group;
  • sit where they are not in the overt line of vision for the tutor or the group, but at the same time they need to be able to see both the tutor and the group;
  • take brief notes when necessary, and ensure that these notes relative to the enabling of learning rather than the content of the session;
  • carefully observe the methodologies employed, the responses and interactive processes used, the ability of the tutor to effectively achieve their aims, and the areas of successful and less-successful achievement in the session;
  • the observer needs to be able to share with the tutor a reflective feedback process at the end of the session;
  • The observer is not to participate in the session as this changes the focus of the activity and reduces the capacity to comment on process.
  • In student-led sessions it may be appropriate for the observer to discuss the students' work with individual or groups of students