A Handbook for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Enhancing academic and Practice

472 ❘
Enhancing personal practice
WAYS OF DEMONSTRATING TEACHING AND
EDUCATIONAL ACHIEVEMENT
As already indicated, the teaching and learning credentials of early career academics are
often demonstrated through growing practice and completion of a programme of
assessed study and practice. In such programmes the distinction between formative and
summative work is often blurred. Work completed for, or as part of, or able to count
towards certification often contributes to the development of practice through reflection
and feedback (formative) as well as demonstrating that the standard required for the
qualification has been reached (summative). We comment below on a range of types of
assessment commonly in use; most programmes use more than one method.
Interrogating practice
If you had to devise the formative and summative assessment requirements
to demonstrate achievement of the intermediate level of the UK Professional
Standards, what methods would you use? Why?
How similar are the requirements you have devised to those that your
institution actually uses?
Techniques commonly used for assessment and the enhancement of practice
Observation of teaching
In its simplest form, observation of teaching is the process by which an individual’s
teaching is observed by another with the intention of providing feedback or eliciting a
discussion that can enable the person observed to enhance the quality of their teaching
and their students’ learning. In higher education it is often interpreted to mean
observation of lectures, but any type of teaching activity can be observed, although
sometimes the logistics of this may be difficult. The observer may be a peer, colleague in
the same discipline, or a specialist educationalist.
Observation of teaching is one of the most common ways by which academics are
asked to demonstrate their skills as teachers and in supporting student learning. It is
commonly used in a developmental way and may also be used summatively. Evidence
from observation of teaching may be used to inform decisions about confirmation in post
at the end of the probationary period and as part of an accredited programme.
Commonly observation of teaching follows a three-stage process (Gosling, 2005):
• Stage 1: Pre-observation meeting/discussion. This should be a face-to-face meeting
between the observer and the observed teacher to agree the ground rules and what
is to be observed. Many issues can be considered in this discussion, including