Student Observation of Teaching
I was glad to attend the Advance HE conference yesterday, which, in a previous incarnation, was the Higher Education Academy’s annual conference. This is a chance for folk working in UK universities interested in learning and teaching to swap notes, ideas, practices, and grumbles, and it took place this year in Birmingham. I was there partly to see what is going on in other institutions, including those who might be more exclusively concentrated on teaching than Sheffield, and partly to talk about a project I have ran here about Student Observation of Teaching — the simple idea behind which being a student from one department being partnered with a member of staff from another department, to observe, feedback, and have some kind of conversation about learning and teaching.
There were three great advantages in presenting to this conference. Firstly I ran the workshop in collaboration with Jasper Shotts from the University of Lincoln, who leads a longer-standing and more embedded Student Consultant on Teaching scheme. Jasper’s great, and, coming from Lincoln, means he’s connected with the work of Mike Neary, whose concept of students as producers was one of the founding principles of the project. Secondly, we had the luxury of an hour with which to share our practices, which was great given that most of the other slots were only 20 minutes; and, moving to the third advantage, that meant we had time to hear about equally excellent practices in student collaboration from other participants in the workshop. I already knew about the ChangeMakers project at UCL, and at this workshop, heard about excellent student-led learning projects at Monash, and the involvement of students in programme approval processes at the University of Surrey.
The response to my own project was also very positive, and I received some useful comments and feedback on the scheme. This year, there have been 17 pairings involving 22 staff and 16 students, and the dialogue between them has taken different forms, with students sometimes observing just one teaching session and offering feedback, and sometimes engaging in more longitudinal discussion, consideration, and dialogue about the staff member’s practices. Staff valued the scheme for offering richer feedback than can usually be obtained through conventional module evaluation processes; and students welcomed the additional insights into (a) how teaching happens, and (b) their own learning that the richer conversation offered. It has also helped foster a sense of a community of learning across the institution, and across staff/student boundaries. I plan to run the scheme again next year, and to pursue journal publication of our findings, again in collaboration with Jasper, before the end of this calendar year.
My thanks go to the Research Committee for supporting my attendance at this conference.
Dr Tim Herrick, Director of Learning and Teaching, Senior University Teacher.
