Teaching Observations
CTSI’s Teaching Observations service is intended to provide instructors with formative feedback on their instructional practices in a class session (in-person or online synchronous). At an instructor’s request, a Faculty Liaison from CTSI attends a class session for one hour and provides constructive feedback.
Teaching Observations are an effective means to gather formative feedback on one’s teaching in a low-risk context and to explore ways to strengthen instructional practices and achieve goals for student learning.
The Teaching Observations process occurs in three stages:
- Stage 1: The instructor and observer meet for 30 minutes to determine the focus of the observation.
- Stage 2: The observer spends 1 hour observing the instructor’s class session.
- Stage 3: The instructor and observer meet for 1 hour to discuss the feedback from the observation.
The pre- and post-observation meetings can occur in-person or virtually.
Please note:
- Teaching Observations will be conducted during regular business hours (9am-5pm)
- When completing the request form, you can indicate your preferred timeline for the Teaching Observation. We will do our best to arrange the observation according to these dates.
- Teaching Observations should not be scheduled for the first or last day of class in a term, nor during sessions with tests/exams or guest lecturers.
- A Teaching Observation does not include a review of asynchronous materials (e.g., online learning modules and/or other pre-recorded video materials) and/or the Quercus course site. If this is of interest to you, learn more about requesting a Quercus Course Review.
- Academic units cannot request a Teaching Observation as part of a summative teaching evaluation process.
- The Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI) will not conduct Teaching Observations as a formal part of a tenure or continuing status review, nor as part of a job application process.
- Given the time-intensive nature of a Teaching Observation, we ask that you submit only one observation request. It is likely that the feedback from one observation will be applicable to other courses you teach. Should a new need emerge, you are welcome to submit an additional request for a different course offering to be scheduled at a later time.
Teaching Observations: Request Form