From peer to peer: an opportunity to improve observers' professional development

• Type: Poster in an International Conference
• Date: 2011-07

Authors

José Martins Ferreira (Author) FEUP; Ana Mouraz (Author) FPCEUP; Amélia Lopes (Author) FPCEUP

Conference International

15th biennial conference of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (ISATT¿11)

Braga, Portugal, 4-8 July 2011

Scientific classification

FOS: Social sciences > Educational sciences

CORDIS: Social sciences > Educational sciences > Education

Other information

Abstract (EN): Higher education teaching and learning in Europe faces challenging times and deep changes, largely due to many reforms originated by the so-called Bologna process (Moore et al, 2008; Leite, 2007; Vieira, 2005). What is a good professional is a question that gets, nowadays, other meanings when someone talks about teaching. The objective of this paper is to present the results of a training + research project that was proposed by a Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL) set up jointly by the Faculty of Educational Sciences (FPCEUP) and the Faculty of Engineering (FEUP) at the University of Porto. Its underlying strategy aims to improve the quality of teaching and the quality of learning, and at the same time to capture information about teaching and learning practices used within the university. As teachers¿ evaluation process faces, at least in Portugal, new approaches and operative trends, it was research team intention to distinguish those two processes and when Peer Observation Teaching ( POT) experiment was launched, its main and unique purpose was to promote teachers¿ training; through the peer review model of POT, which emphasises the POT formative effects both to the observer and the observed. Specifically, this paper wants to argue the idea that POT is an opportunity to improve observers¿ professional development. The organisational model underlying this training + research project was based on teams with four elements, two from Educational Sciences and two from Engineering. The observation grid was adapted from several models used in European Universities and in its second part adapts a model from F. Vieira (Vieira, et al., 2004). The first section covers class-related topics, namely "organisation", "presentation", "class mood", "content", and "awareness and flexibility". The second section asks the observer to compare the observed class with his/her own classes, offering the observer four leading questions addressing observation subjects that were not covered by the closed response items: 1) What was most striking? 2) What questions would I like to ask to the teacher? 3) What similarities / differences were found in relation to my own lecturing practice? 4) Can I make any recommendations? Finally, the third section covers the post-observation reflective discussion. Are those two sections that are presented now as an exercise to highlight observers¿ concerns rather observed teachers¿ practices. Research data comes from 31 observation forms and could aloud us to conclude that experiment gave an opportunity to reflect upon teachers¿ one practices as a result from observing peers.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Educational