Peer observation, feedback and reflection for development of practice in synchronous online teaching

(2015). Peer observation, feedback and reflection for development of practice in synchronous online teaching. Innovations in Education and Teaching International (Early view). Copyright and Moral Rights for the articles on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. For more information on Open Research Online's data policy on reuse of materials please consult the policies page. Peer observation of teaching is an established developmental tool in face-to-face settings. While there have been studies into peer observation as applied to asynchronous online teaching, less is known about its application to teaching online using synchronous communication systems. We describe a small-scale study of an online peer observation scheme with a group of Associate Lecturers in Physical Sciences at the UK Open University. This cohort of teaching staff was engaged in a series of peer observed tutorials, with the aim of fostering their development through subsequent reflection and dialogue. The study was evaluated through the thematic analysis of subsequent structured conversations. Emergent themes lead us to consider the value of peer observation in the context of synchronous online tuition. Introduction Online learning at the Open University (OU) is making increasing use of synchronous conferencing facilities (Harper and Nicolson, 2013), i.e. those that allow students to communicate by audio and share whiteboards and documents in real time. While such technologies engender a wide range of pedagogic approaches, they also present questions about what strategies can be effective in developing staff to use such tools. It is useful to make a distinction between development of technical competence, and the development of practices which facilitate effective learning using such tools. In our case, technical training is addressed through the provision of online staff development courses. Development of good practice in effective learning presents greater challenges, not least because there is, as yet, little by way of established good practice. Since knowledge of good practice lies with staff confident enough to experiment with the medium and inclined to reflect on their work, we are interested in assessing whether peer-observation can play a useful role in developing staff to use synchronous conferencing tools to facilitate learning.