Using observation of teaching to improve quality: finding your way through the muddle of competing conceptions,confusion of practice and mutually exclusive intentions |
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Authors: | Tim McMahon Terry Barrett Geraldine O'Neill |
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Institution: | 1. UCD , Dublin, Republic of Ireland tim.mcmahon@ucd.ie;3. UCD , Dublin, Republic of Ireland |
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Abstract: | This paper begins by reviewing some of the different models of third-party observation of university teaching that can be found in the literature. Having analysed these, it argues that—if ‘peer’ is taken to indicate equality of status—only one is genuinely a model of peer-observation. It proposes an alternative categorisation of third-party observations of teaching dependant on who controls the information generated by the process. A preferred six-dimensional model based on control by the person being observed of the data-flow, and other procedural aspects, is presented and explored. Evaluative comments, by university teachers who have undertaken the process, are presented to illustrate the benefits of adopting this model. |
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