The context for this Review
This creative and practical studio based subject is co-taught mainly in a face to face mode (with overheads and notes put online) to a diverse cohort of second year undergraduate students, half of whom are school leavers and half international students. The design studio model framework used in this subject develops students' visual skills and creative problem solving by working collaboratively and completing project tasks.
Review participants
The teachers in this case are also the reviewers and both are Communication Design academics who have worked extensively industry and had been involved with small scale peer observation when they completed their Graduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning, and although they did not consider themselves experienced reviewers they felt they had become comfortable with making their teaching public: "So in some ways my mindset had already slightly altered because of that, to be open to a kind of feedback - I wouldn’t call it criticism, it’s more just feedback - and just different ways of doing things.”
Reason for the Review is that this teaching team wanted to engage in a formative review process as a way to continue to improve their teaching and to possibly later use as a useful form of evidence for their annual performance and planning discussions and ultimately promotion applications. The review was also an opportunity to affirm good teaching practice and build upon collegial relationships.
What happened in this review
Aspect of the subject in this review was the engagement of students, the overall structure and design of the subject and its delivery as three-hour face to face sessions.
Forms of evidence considered by the reviewers were the structure of each of their three-hour face to face sessions in turn, although they chose as a focus one session to review as it was taking place. The review was conducted during the teaching of the block classes. The subject documentation was also reviewed.
Review Process
Pre-Review Briefing Their briefing of each other took place in multiple conversations they have as a matter of course in their co-teaching of the subject. For this review they utilised the briefing template they had been introduced to in team meetings as a basis for reflection, reviewing and documentation.
The Review was done by this pair of teachers together, as they both contribute equally to the subject and teaching. They took turns during the session either teaching, or looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the class and noting these. After completing the review they documented their findings together and these were blended into one document.
Debrief meeting was not done formally, nor at one time but as part of their habitual teaching discussions, "We had a lot of talking going on as well…before, after and in between really."
Time taken to complete all parts of this review was approximately one day (8-10 hours). This took place over three weeks interspersed with other things, and included 2 hours for briefing; 3 hours of observation, followed by 3 hours of debriefing and writing up together.
Outcomes of this review
- Useful results of this review included tracking students progress more closely and providing a lot more documentation to support them
- This review team are interested in continuing to find further resources and support for reviewing their teaching. They are excited to be participating in ongoing projects that are planned, "we just met for the first time about a month ago about doing some more stuff together and I think we only met for an hour but all of us felt very excited about how potentially we’re going to take this forward…I think all of us - there was a small group of us that took part in the initial peer review - I think we realised how beneficial it was. In that respect we were excited to share it with others and to see how others reacted."
- They would both like to go on to to do a cross disciplinary review, for example, these teachers can really see the value of going on to do a completely different type of review in a science discipline, "I can see that would be actually a really useful thing to do, after doing this, to actually review someone else, that for me might be someone doing biology or mathematics where I have very little clue."
- They are actively looking for other ways to utilise the review for teaching portfolios and future promotion applications.
Points to note from this guided review
- Both of teachers had recently completed a Graduate Certificates in Teaching and felt that this made them more prepared to accept critique of their teaching.
- Adopting a process of self-critique using the framework followed by observing each other in their face to face sessions was helpful for investigating what these teachers were interested in knowing more about their subject and students.
- As a close colleagues co-teaching the subject they debrief extensively as a matter of course, but after this review they reported feeling that they now have a structure and process of documenting this for themselves
- These teachers adapted the materials to their context and put materials ‘into their own language’ but really appreciated the starting points and the need for flexibility. For example, they found adapting the short summary form and completing it together was most helpful.