Assessing Information Literacy Instruction

Teaching librarians are encouraged, but not required, to invite colleagues to observe their teaching. Observing a colleague teach is an opportunity to a) see different approaches to similar content b) engage in a constructive conversation about approaches to classroom teaching with a colleague.

Goals
To offer a structure as the basis for giving and receiving constructive feedback on teaching. The prompts are talking points for constructive conversation, they may not all apply to every observation scenario.

To encourage teaching librarians to participate we want the relationship between Peer Teaching Observation (an assessment practice) and Annual Reviews (a job performance evaluation practice) to be that primarily we emphasis and get “credit” for participating in both sides of the observation process. That is, asking for and receiving constructive feedback is encouraged, not penalized.

Structure
All observations include a pre- and post-meeting, either in person, via phone or web conferencing. You’re strongly encouraged to notify the subject instructor about the observation, and that the librarian is being observed for a teaching assessment; the instructor and students are not being evaluated.

1. Pre-Observation Meeting
2. Class Observation
3. Post-Observation Meeting

You can download prompts for all three parts of the peer observation process (Word document below), or read them farther down on this page.

1. What is the subject and structure of the course you’ll be teaching in?
2. What are your learning objectives for this class?
3. What are your planned teaching/learning activities for achieving them?
4. Has the instructor requested anything in particular for this class?
5. Have students been asked to do anything in preparation for this class?
6. Will this class be a typical example of your teaching? If not, what will be different?
7. What would you like for me to focus on during the observation?
8. Is there anything else I should be aware of prior to the observation?

1. Summarize your observations.
2. What went well?
3. What could be improved?
4. How did the lesson evolve differently than planned?
5. What will you do differently next time?
6. Did the teaching approach match the outcomes and content?
7. Discuss anything else about the session.