Transforming Teaching Through Peer Observation

Peer observation of teaching offers a structured, formative process that helps make teaching more visible, reflective, and collaborative. At its simplest, it involves one faculty member inviting another to observe their teaching and engage in a post-observation conversation. But its implications go far deeper.

In the day-to-day work of instruction, it’s easy for faculty to fall into routine—doing what needs to be done without questioning what works and why. The conversations that emerge from your observations bring teaching and learning back to the center, encouraging both you and your colleague to revisit foundational questions: Why teach this way? What impact is it having? How could it be different? These questions, asked together, are the heart of reflective teaching.

Beyond Process: The Transformative Power of Peer Observation

While much of this book has focused on mechanics—how to initiate contact, conduct pre-observation meetings, observe thoughtfully, and engage in post-observation dialogue—the true value of serving as a peer observer extends far beyond process. The ripple effects will touch every aspect of your professional life and reach into the very heart of why you teach.

Helping Colleagues Build Confidence

When you provide positive feedback to colleagues on their teaching, something remarkable happens: their confidence grows. This isn’t ego gratification but professional affirmation that what they do matters, that their efforts are seen and valued. Your observations and affirmations often lead to something even more valuable: their willingness to experiment with novel teaching methods. When faculty feel secure in their core abilities through your support, they become more willing to take risks, to try new strategies, to restructure lessons in ways they’ve only imagined. As an observer, you create a safe space for both affirmation and innovation, giving your colleagues courage to evolve as educators.

Helping Shift Focus from Teaching to Learning

One of the most profound transformations you can catalyze as an observer is helping your colleague make a fundamental shift in perspective. Teaching is about the things the teacher says and does, but learning is about what is happening in the minds of students. This distinction may seem subtle, but it’s revolutionary.

When you enter a colleague’s classroom as an outside observer, you bring fresh eyes to their practice. Your observations can lead them to reflect more deeply on how what they say and do truly impacts their students. Are students genuinely engaged, or merely compliant? Are they grappling with concepts, or just recording information? Your careful observations help move the focus to the learner mindset, transforming their understanding of what happens in their classrooms. This shift can have a lasting impact on how they approach every aspect of teaching—from lesson design to assessment to classroom interaction.

Returning Your Colleague (and Yourself) to First Principles

When faculty are doing the “work” of teaching—managing grading, attending meetings, preparing lectures, responding to emails—it’s easy to just get it done rather than think about and question what works and why. They become practitioners on autopilot, repeating patterns without pausing to examine them.

Your role as a peer observer helps move teaching and learning to the center of the discussion. These peer-to-peer conversations take both you and the faculty member you’re observing back to the “root” of the what, why, and how of teaching. By having conversations about teaching quandaries and dilemmas, you both stand to reflect and gain insight. Identifying areas for improvement helps both of you—you learn from witnessing different approaches, while your colleague gains new perspectives on their practice.

Building Community and Friendship

Perhaps one of the most surprising outcomes of serving as a peer observer is your capacity to forge genuine connections with colleagues. New friendships may begin with a peer observation. We know this firsthand: the authors of this book first met when Don observed Lynn’s class. That single observation sparked a relationship that led to numerous academic collaborations, including work with the teaching center, collaborative presentations, and ultimately, the publication of this book.

Time and again, we’ve witnessed how the vulnerability and trust involved in peer observation create bonds that extend beyond the classroom. When you accept a colleague’s invitation to observe and engage in honest dialogue about their practice, you open doors to collegial relationships built on mutual respect and shared purpose.

Your Foundation: Formative, Not Evaluative

Throughout this book, we’ve emphasized a crucial principle that should guide your work as an observer: peer observation, as we envision and practice it, is formative, never summative. You are offering this to faculty—never as a required thing from people in power. The instructor can do with your feedback what they please. Your role is to share what you saw—not to judge or assess—and to create space for the faculty member to reflect, ask questions, and consider refinements.

Your Essential Elements: A Review

As a peer observer, your work rests on several interconnected components:

Your Response to Initial Contact: When a faculty member initiates a peer observation request, your prompt, encouraging reply helps foster trust and ease apprehension. This first interaction sets the tone for everything that follows.

Your Pre-Observation Meeting: This crucial first step allows you to create rapport, clarify purpose and process, and attend to logistical details. By prioritizing connection, explanation, goal setting, and coordination, you create a space where your colleague feels respected, heard, and open to reflection.

Your Classroom Observation: This is the very heart and soul of your work. During the observation—informed by both the pre-observation meeting and your own professional experiences—you observe and objectively record behaviors related to faculty-student rapport, classroom climate, lesson pacing and flow, student engagement, interactions, apparent student understanding, time management, and use of instructional resources. Your careful observation and detailed notes provide a rich and nuanced view of what happens in college classrooms.

Your Post-Observation Meeting: Providing timely feedback is essential for meaningful reflection. You should conduct the post-observation meeting in person whenever possible, as the nuances of shared dialogue—tone, body language, and presence—are often lost in phone calls or written communication. This moment should be anchored in your respectful listening and commitment to confidentiality, allowing the faculty member to feel supported, safe, and empowered to engage in honest self-reflection.

Your Written Report: While your written summary can be helpful as follow-up, it cannot substitute for genuine conversation. The documents you generate through the observation process provide an excellent basis for subsequent discussions about teaching practices and their effects on student learning.

Why Your Participation in Peer Observation Matters

The reasons for you to engage as a peer observer are compelling:

• To improve teaching: Through your observations, facilitation of reflection, and peer-to-peer discussion, you help your colleagues enhance their effectiveness and ultimately improve student learning.
• To create a community of teaching practice: Your participation as an observer breaks down the isolation of teaching, fostering connections among colleagues committed to educational excellence.
• To document teaching performance: In ways that honor faculty autonomy and professional judgment, your observations can provide meaningful documentation of teaching effectiveness.
• To make teaching public: By accepting invitations to observe, you help normalize the practice of teaching as a shared scholarly endeavor worthy of observation, discussion, and continuous improvement.

Our Hope for You as a Peer Observer

At its simplest level, serving as a peer observer means accepting a colleague’s invitation to observe their teaching and have a subsequent conversation based on this shared experience. Simple, yes. But within that simplicity lies extraordinary potential. Our hope is that through serving as a peer observer, you will find renewed energy for your own teaching, deeper connections with colleagues, and greater insight into student learning.

So, why in the world would you ever want to do this?

Because teaching matters. Because learning matters.

Your colleagues deserve your support and insight, and you deserve the professional growth that comes from observing and discussing teaching with others.

Peer observation of teaching is not just a process you facilitate. It is a practice you engage in. It is a mindset you cultivate. It is transformative—for your colleagues and for you.

And it begins with your willingness to say “yes.”

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Our journey with peer observation began when Don was a peer observer in Lynn’s class. That classroom visit evolved into the professional collaboration that produced this book. We hope your journey as a peer observer will be equally transformative. Thank you for joining us in this work.

—Don and Lynn