Personal development
Phil Race has written an excellent article on evaluation for professional development 'Evidencing Reflection: putting the 'w' into reflection'. The article is available on line from http://www.escalate.ac.uk/resources/reflection/index.html
Peer observation
The purpose of peer observation is to share excellence in teaching and teaching practice. A peer observation scheme can be used to promote individual reflective practice and a culture of colaborative reflective practice. The observation is confidential between the 'buddies' with confirmation that the observation has taken place being lodged in a central place (department or institution). Such a scheme should be supportive in nature, not a fault flagging process. The School of Informatics at Northumbria University introduced a peer observation scheme in 1999; this was superceded by a university-wide scheme introduced a few years later.
Another example of a peer observation system is that from Queen Margaret University College. Details are available from
http://www.qmuc.ac.uk/cap/Guidelines/Page.asp?ID=PeerObs1
Although these schemes were originally developed for face-to-face teaching, they can easily be tailored to apply to use of a VLE in teaching and learning. A 'buddy system' is also an excellent way of starting to share teaching material.
Reflective practice should not be a 'once a semester' activity; it should be ongoing. Keeping a reflective journal or portfolio can assist in the continuous nature of reflection. A peer observation scheme together with individual and collective reflective practice can lead to scholarship of teaching. Visit the Higher Education Academy website for more information on this topic.
Resources
Guidelines on peer observation are available from the Escalate website at
http://www.escalate.ac.uk/resources/peerobservation/
'The evaluation cookbook'
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/Resources/evalkit/toolkit-database/ev019/view
Evaluation resources on the JISC infoNet website
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/Resources/evalkit/resource-eval-methods/view
HE Academy resources page
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/979.htm
Collecting and using student feedback - a guide to good practice. John Brennan, Ruth Williams.
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources.asp?process=full_record§ion=generic&id=352
HE Academy: Peer observation of teaching
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/988.htm
e-learning centre has a page of links relevant to evaluating online practice
http://www.e-learningcentre.co.uk/eclipse/Resources/effective.htm
'Interact' is published twice a year by the Learning Technology Support Service at The University of Bristol. 'Interact' Issue 30 is devoted to evaluating e-learning and includes an article on evaluating the the costs and benefits of e-learning.
Approaches to evaluating the effect of ICT on student learning. Rob Phillips and Tony Gilding. An LTSN leaflet ELN015 (Rich Text Format (RTF)) available from the HE Academy Website This guide is aimed at teaching staff and project managers involved in developing ICT applications. 'We will focus on the hardest part - planning an evaluation study. Once a plan is in place, people with social science research skills can be employed to do much of the leg-work of the study.'
