Nursing Education & Peer Review of Teaching Strategies and Evaluation of Teaching Material
Peer review of Teaching Strategies in Nursing Education, Evaluation of Teaching and Learning Materials in Nursing Education.
Peer review of Teaching Strategies in Nursing Education
Peer and colleague review may provide information on teaching effectiveness through classroom observation and assessment of course materials. In this context, a peer is defined as another faculty member within the same discipline with expertise in the field, and a colleague is an individual outside of the discipline with expertise in the art and science of teaching.
Peer review can serve to promote quality improvement of teaching effectiveness and as documentation for performance review. Before peer review is implemented, there is a need to be clear about what data will be gathered, who will have access to the data, and for what purposes they will be used. Faculty and administrators, as stakeholders in the endeavor, should collaborate to establish the norms and standards.
Data from peer review may be used prescriptively to assist faculty in developing and improving teaching skills. At some point, peer review data may be needed for performance review and administrative decision making. Some schools require both classroom visits and opportunities to observe master teachers for all new faculty and periodic classroom visits for all faculty thereafter.
In some schools the observation of teaching is voluntary. The age of the classroom as the private domain of the teacher is disappearing rapidly, and both accountability and the opportunity to demonstrate the scholarship of teaching are causing colleges and universities to require increased documentation of teaching as a routine part of the evaluation process.
Although classroom observation has been used as a technique for the peer review of teaching for a number of years, the reliability and validity of this method has been suspected. The validity and reliability of classroom observation as an evaluation tool is increased by:
(1) including multiple visits and multiple, unbiased visitors
(2) establishing clear criteria in advance of the observation
(3) ensuring that participants agree about the appropriateness and fairness of the assessment instruments and the process
(4) preparing faculty to conduct observations (Danielson, 2012; Rui & Feldman, 2012)
Before classroom teaching visits are made, the students should be advised of the visit and should be assured that they are not the focus of the observation. Peer reviewers should meet with the faculty member before the visit and review the goals of the session, what has preceded and what will follow the session, planned teaching methods, assignments made for the session, and an indication of how this class fits into the total program.
This provides a clear image for the visitors and establishes a beginning rapport. Some faculty have particular goals for growth that can be shared at this time as areas for careful observation and comment. Finally, a post-visit interview should be conducted to review the observation and to identify strengths and areas for growth.
This may include consultation regarding strategies for growth with the scheduling of a return visit at a later date. Many visitors interviewed the students briefly after the visit to determine their reaction to the class and to ascertain whether this was a typical class rather than a special, staged event.
Unless there is a designated visiting team, the faculty member to be visited is usually able to make selections or at least suggestions about the visitors who will make the observation.
Peer visits to clinical teaching sessions should follow the same general approach as classroom visits, although specific criteria for observation will be established to meet the unique attributes of clinical teaching and learning. An additional requirement is that the visitor be familiar with clinical practice expectations in the area to be visited.
Evaluation of Teaching and Learning Materials in Nursing Education
The review of teaching and learning materials is another element of evaluation of teaching effectiveness that may be conducted through peer review. Materials commonly included for review are the course syllabus, textbooks and reading lists, teaching plans, teaching or learning aids, assignments, and outcome measures.
In all cases, the materials are reviewed for congruence with the course objectives, appropriateness to the level of the learner, content scope and depth, clarity, organization, and evidence of usefulness in advancing students toward the goals of the course. The syllabus is reviewed to determine whether expectations are clear, and methods of evaluation are detailed.
It is especially important that students understand what is required to “pass” the course. Grading scales and weighting of each of the evaluation methods used in the course should be explained. In the review of textbooks for their appropriateness for a given course, multiple elements may be considered. The readability of a text relates to the extent to which the reading demands of the textbook match the reading abilities of the students.
This assumes that the faculty member has a profile of student reading scores from preadmission testing. The readability of a textbook is usually based on measures of word difficulty and sentence complexity. Other issues of concern include the use of visual aids; cultural and sexual biases; scope and depth of content coverage; and size, cost, and accuracy of the data contained within the text (Sellers & Haag, 1993).
Another factor of importance is the analysis of the textbook. This element relates to the organization and presentation of material in a logical manner that increases the likelihood of the reader’s understanding of the content and ability to apply the content to practice. A review should determine the ratio of important and unimportant material and the extent to which important concepts are articulated, clarified, and explained.
Do the authors relate intervening ideas to the main thesis of a chapter and clarify the relationships between and among central concepts? The ease with which information can be located in the index is important so that students can use the book as a reference. Because of the high cost of textbooks, it is useful to consider whether the textbook will be a good reference for other classes in the curriculum.
A review of a textbook must also include consideration of whether the content has supported student learning. When student papers or other creative products are used for evaluation purposes, it is common to review a sample of these papers or products that the teacher has judged to be weak, average, and above average to provide a clearer view of expectations and how the students have met those expectations.
This review provides an opportunity to demonstrate student outcomes. If a faculty member wants to retain copies of student papers and creative works to demonstrate outcomes, he or she should obtain informed consent from the students. Accrediting bodies often wish to see samples of student work, and faculty may use them to demonstrate learning outcomes for purposes of their own evaluation.
Each student’s identity should be protected, and consent should be obtained. The review of teaching and learning aids depends on the organization and use of these materials. The organization may be highly structured in that all are expected to use certain materials in certain situations or sequences, or materials may be resources available to faculty and students for use at their discretion according to the outcomes they wish to achieve.
Students may be expected to search for and locate materials, to create materials to facilitate their learning, or simply to use the materials provided in a prescribed manner. The emphasis will determine whether evaluation questions related to materials are based on variety, creativity, and availability or whether the materials have been used as intended.
Regardless of the overall emphasis, teaching and learning materials should be evaluated for efficiency and cost effectiveness. Efficiency can be evaluated by determining whether the time demands, and effort required to use the materials are worth the outcomes achieved. Cost effectiveness can be determined by considering whether the costs of the materials justify the outcomes.