"While most academics express few concerns about
peer scrutiny of research activities, they tend to be
skeptical of any process of peer review involving
teaching." (Taylor & Richardson, 2001)
A connection between "peer review of teaching" and
"peer review of research" is made variously by a range of
universities. For instance:
Peer review of teaching (as well as research) is
being used in some universities as a way of ...
improving teaching. Peer review can be used to provide
a more comprehensive evaluation of teaching by
examining aspects not covered by student evaluations,
including paper design, assessment tasks, classroom
practice, and student learning. It is also particularly
useful when used formatively to create a culture of
collaboration and collegiality between colleagues.
(Peer Review, n.d.)
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The importance and weight of peer review of teaching
has been questioned at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, "Should peer review of teaching
effectiveness be undertaken as systematically as peer
review of research in promotion and tenure cases, and
given equal weight in decisions?" (Ball, 1991) and
answered at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, "A
peer perspective on teaching has become so highly
valued ... that all tenure and promotion files now
must include peer review of teaching, just as they have
long included peer review of research" (Bernstein,
1997).
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Ramsden and colleagues (1995) make a case for the
benefits of peer review of teaching by saying,
Academic staff are acquainted with the process of
peer review of research performance, and the use of the
same process to assess and improve teaching would help
increase its status while at the same time emphasising
the links between aspects of academic work.
The Center for Educational and Development and
Academic Methods (1996) caution that while "there is
a tendency to think that peer review of teaching works in
the same way as peer review of research and publication.
Its greater virtue, however is in the development of
teaching".
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Taylor and Richardson (2001) see peer review of
teaching as an "emerging reality" as "the
activities of teaching and learning are now claimed as
public territory".
Knox et al (1999) counter instead that "teaching
occurs almost wholly in private, behind the closed
classroom door. There is neither public currency nor
consensual standards between pieces of practice or among
practitioners. Consequently, it is difficult to
understand the process of peer-review in the same
way".
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Knox, D., Goelman, D., Fincher, S., Hightower, J.,
Dale, N., Loose, K, Adams, E., Springsteel, F.(1999)
The Peer Review Process of Teaching
Materials. Retrieved 24 March 2005 from http://fox.cs.vt.edu/JERIC/wg1report.pdf
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Taylor, P. and Richardson, A. (2001).
Validating Scholarship in University
Teaching. Retrieved 28 March 2005 from
http://www.
dest.gov.au/archive/highered/eippubs/eip01_3/01_3.pdf
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