This document discusses peer-supported review as an alternative to traditional peer observation of teaching. It outlines 10 guiding principles for peer-supported review, including that it is developmental rather than evaluative. Communities of practice theory holds that professional identities are negotiated through participation in communities. Peer-supported review provides an opportunity for reflection on teaching practice and professional identity within one's community. The process involves selecting an activity for review, peer observation/discussion, and reflective evaluation but not formal recording of outcomes.

1. From peer observation of teaching to
peer-supported review
Elizabeth Staddon
Hilaire Graham
Learning and Teaching

2. Quality assurance and quality
enhancement
 Quality Assurance Agency (QAA): quality
assurance and quality enhancement.
 Systematic peer observation of teaching
encouraged as a ‘quality enhancement’
measure.
 Peer observation has become
commonplace within the HE sector.

3. Recognised problems with peer
observation of teaching
 Question of who is qualified to judge
good teaching.
 Token engagement /compliance with
university policy rather than genuine
interest in ‘enhancement’.
 Focus on teaching is too narrow.
 Implementation is patchy.

4. Models of peer observation
 Evaluative – judges quality of teaching.
 Developmental – a more experienced or
knowledgeable colleague reviews a less
experienced colleague.
 Collaborative – peers engage in dialogue
to enhance teaching and understanding
of student learning.

5. Peer-supported review
 Aims to facilitate a non-judgemental
dialogue where staff feel safe to reflect
on their practice and values.
 Intended as a collaborative learning
process.

6. Ten guiding principles (1)
 Respects professional autonomy and
gives control over the process to the
reviewee.
 Requires reviewee to undertake self-
evaluation through reflection.
 Developmental in its aim to support peer
learning among colleagues (not
judgemental).

7. Ten guiding principles (2)
 Requires colleagues to work together as
equals.
 Intended to be a constructive process to
improve professional practice and
students’ experience of studying.
 Proceeds through conversation,
examination of relevant documents and,
in some cases, observation.

8. Ten guiding principles (3)
 A scholarly process, using available evidence
and referencing existing knowledge.
 Typically involves pairs, but could involve
teaching teams, learning sets, or learning
communities.
 Consistent with good professional practice.
 Practicable within working hours and not an
excessive burden in terms of time.

9. A theoretical perspective: Wenger’s
communities of practice
 Social learning theory.
 Communities of practice characterised by
mutual engagement, joint engagement and
shared repertoire; defined by what they do
rather than homogeneity.
 We all belong to several communities of
practice – past and present and full and
peripheral members.
 Meaning is negotiated through mix of
participation and reification.

10. Communities of practice and
individual identity
 Identity is characterised as:
• Negotiated experience
• Community membership
• Learning trajectory
• Nexus of multi-membership

11. Identity and peer-supported
review
 Focus on individual identity in relation to
community accountability.
 Positive forum for negotiating meaning.
 Opportunity to reflect on membership.
 Opportunity to reflect on trajectory – what does
and doesn’t matter, and what contributes to
our identity and what remains marginal.
 Connects local ways of belonging to broader
discourses (through scholarship).

12. Our identities have trajectories:
they are going somewhere
Our identities ‘provide a context in which
to determine what, among all the things
that are potentially significant, actually
becomes significant learning. A sense of
trajectory gives us ways of sorting out
what matters and what does not, what
contributes to our identity and what
remains marginal.’ (p.155).

13. Reviewer and reviewee
‘One of the risks in undertaking PS-R is that staff
will simply choose a peer reviewer who will do
the ‘back-patting’ without providing the
‘challenge’. In these circumstances little will be
learned by either party to the process. For the
dialogue to be productive and to open up new
possibilities for the staff member being reviewed,
the key requirement of the peer reviewer/critical
friend is that he or she can ask the right
questions and move the conversation on.’
(Gosling 2009)

14. Participation
 all academic staff and staff including
senior managers, and
 part-time staff to be given opportunities
to participate,
 paired or a group process,
 within or between course teams or
schools,
 can be reciprocal review

15. Process
 Deciding upon an activity for review, often
formulated as a question or problem that
requires investigation.
 Peer-review activity, which might also include
collecting information or research literature to
inform the process.
 Reflective activity in which the reviewer
supports the reviewee in critical evaluation of
his or her practice.

16. Ways of questioning
 Categories: open-closed and recall-
thought
 Pitch
 Pauses
 Probes
 Sequencing
 Active listening

17. Recording
 A minimum of paperwork
 necessary to record completed peer-
supported review activity and topic
explored for quality assurance audit, but
 outcomes of the peer process need not
be recorded,
 And record stored in Faculty offices.

18. Outcomes
 peer-supported review activity might lead
participants to identify further
professional development needs or
 to identify future projects or opportunities
for sharing practice with colleagues, and
 May be discussed at PDR …

19. References
 Gosling, D. and Mason O’Connor, K. (2009)
Beyond the Peer Observation of Teaching,
SEDA Paper 124.
 Wenger, E. (1998) Comunities of Practice:
Learning, Meaning and Identity, Cambridge
University Press.
 Brown, G. and Atkins, M. (1988) Effective
Teaching in Higher Education, Routledge.