What to do and look for when observing a peer's teaching

This will depend on your pre-agreed criteria and framework, and the data collection methods and technologies adopted. Possibilities include:

Directed peer observation can be useful for those with less experience of observing teaching. You will need one or more of the following:

• a checklist of pre-determined questions or global categories, for example see: The University of Nottingham and ESCalate
• your own institution's checklists (see resources in the Partners' links on the right)
• focus on a particular issue in teaching, for example, use of visual aids.

Open approaches can be useful for those with more experience of peer observation of teaching. You can:

• provide a chronological record of what happened during the session for discussion at the debrief meeting;
• use an ethnographic style of recording where the observer notes down anything that strikes him or her, for discussion with the observee at the debrief meeting (e.g. 'I noticed that you did X, and that would never have occurred to me/where I would have done y. Could you explain your rationale for doing x?'
• adopt measurement-based criteria where you could, for example, observe the ratio of teacher talking time to student talking time, or look at interaction patterns, or gender bias of where you give your attention during the teaching time;
• analyse critical incidents or critical decisions
• use stimulated recall, for example, using a video of the teaching session, or referring back to your session plans (see also the article on Teaching Process Recall in the Resources/Peer observation of teaching section of the Higher Education Academy website);