Departmental Peer Assessment

Teaching Center staff will work with your department to identify or develop protocols and/or tools tailored to the needs of the department to conduct peer reviews and observations of teaching. Teaching Center staff can also help train instructors to perform observations and provide constructive feedback.

Sample Peer Review Tools

Resources and Readings for Departmental Peer Assessment

Kuo, F., Crabtree, J. L., & Scott, P. J. (2016). Peer observation and evaluation tool (POET): A formative peer review supporting scholarly teaching. The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy, 4(3) doi:10.15453/2168-6408.1273

The article describes a study conducted to validate and check reliability of POET, a formative faculty peer observation protocol.
Lund, T. J., Pilarz, M., Velasco, J. B., Chakraverty, D., Rosploch, K., Undersander, M., & Stains, M. (2015). The best of both worlds: Building on the COPUS and RTOP observation protocols to easily and reliably measure various levels of reformed instructional practice. CBE Life Sciences Education, 14(2), ar18. doi:10.1187/cbe.14-10-0168

In this article, the authors describe cluster analyses they developed using data from 269 STEM class observed using two popular validated peer observation protocols, COPUS and RTOP. Through their analysis, they identified alignment between protocols and most commonly enacted instructional practices occurring in classes observed.
Marchant, G. J. (1989). StRoBe: A classroom-on-task measure.

Marchant describes the Student Record of Behavior (StRoBe) tool and protocol for documenting student behaviors related to engagement within a physical space.
Smith, M. K., Francis H. M. Jones, Gilbert, S. L., & Wieman, C. E. (2013). The classroom observation protocol for undergraduate STEM (COPUS): A new instrument to characterize university STEM classroom practices. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 12(4), 618-627. doi:10.1187/cbe.13-08-0154

The authors describe the popular Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) protocol, the process by which it was developed and validated, and discuss how it differs from other classroom observation protocols. COPUS requires trained observers to document behaviors of the instructor and students.
Van Note Chism, N. (1999). Peer review of teaching: A sourcebook. Bolton, MA: Anker.

Van Note Chism proposes a framework for the use of peer review; describes tasks involved in setting up a peer-review program; and provides guidelines, protocols, checklists, and reproducible rating forms for reviewing course materials, classroom performance and non-course teaching activities, such as overall departmental teaching efforts and teaching portfolios. She addresses institution-level issues: policies about peer review; responsibilities of administrators, reviewers, and reviewees; and the components of an effective peer-review system.