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.