Peer and Supervisory Observation for Faculty Development: Ways of Providing Written Feedback

This paper describes the initiation and development of peer and supervisory observation programs in the Junior College Division of Sophia University.There are several ways to provide written feedback on teaching depending on the aims of the observation and the roles of the participants: unstructured, semi-structured, itemized checklist, informed narration, and combined forms.The author argues that to provide fair and balanced assessment of teaching for supervisory purposes, it is desirable to combine an observation checklist with narrative accounts of teaching performance.Such feedback, however, needs to focus on teaching behaviors that research has found to be associated with positive learning outcomes and student satisfaction.