PEER EVALUATION OF TEACHING
As public expectations of university and faculty accountability increase, the peer review of teaching gains importance as a supplement to student evaluations in the formative and summative assessment and development of faculty. Below are resources that range from descriptions, rationales, and caveats of peer review to instruments ready to use or adapt to your particular needs.
A good place to start is this comprehensive overview, "Appraising Teaching Effectiveness: Beyond Student Ratings."
Collaborative Peer Review: The Role of Faculty in Improving College Teaching offers a balanced discussion of the ways peer review can be used to improve teaching, incentives and disincentives for faculty to participate in a peer review process, and recommendations to consider when planning a peer review and instructional improvement initiative.
The American Association of Higher Education sponsored an extensive pilot project on peer review. Peer Review of Teaching: From Idea to Prototype describes the organization's philosophy of peer review, definitions important to clarify before engaging in peer review, and knowledge that has been gained about the peer review process from the pilot project. This article is an excellent starting point for understanding the issues peer review is meant to address and the overall process recommended.
The Peer Review of Teaching project at the University of Nebraska has developed a website that contains a description of their beginning and advanced peer review processes, Instruments that support peer review, and descriptions of different Teaching Portfolios. The site contains a wealth of practical ideas for engaging in individual peer review and for creating a program of peer review of teaching in and across departments.
Peer Review of Teaching, an extensive website hosted by North Carolina State University, describes formative and summative peer review processes in detail, explains areas of teaching most appropriate for peers to evaluate, questions that can be incorporated into assessment instruments, best practices for developing peer review programs, and an extensive bibliography on peer review and reflective teaching.
The University of Wisconsin - Madison's Peer Review of Teaching has numerous resources for faculty to improve their teaching, show evidence of their teaching effectiveness, evaluate peers' teaching, and design a peer review program
For more information on this or any teaching related topic, please contact the Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center (331-3499) or ftlc@gvsu.edu
Page last modified January 26, 2012
