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Hatzipanagos and Lygo-Baker Teaching Observations 98 practice. Teaching in higher education is, however, considered to be substantially different from teaching in primary and secondary education classrooms (Berge 1998). The limited transferability of experience may result from the different skills required of higher education students and the different learning outcomes they are expected to achieve by the end of a university course. It may also result from a series of common conceptions about teaching in higher education that Ramsden (2003, p85) exposes. These include: • Learning is ultimately the students’ responsibility. • Good teaching in higher education is an elusive, many-sided, idiosyncratic and ultimately indefinable quality. • Teaching is not important at all because the greater part of learning in higher education takes place apart from lectures and other formal classes. These conceptions may help to explain why staff in higher education institutions appear to be resistant to the increased use of teaching observations. The view generally expressed is that they are “managerially owned, capability or quality assurance driven observation schemes” that result in “suspicion, mistrust and resistance” (Shortland, 2004, p. 220). For many it appears that observation of their teaching is yet more evidence of the “growth of external and internal regulation and monitoring . . . associated with academic deprofessionalisation” (Newton, 2003, p. 428). As approaches to teaching and learning have gone from the “individual” through “guided” to “directed” approaches (Skelton, 2004) teaching observation is seen as another method by which autonomy is reduced. The Peer Observation Model In regard to the peer observation model that Gosling identifies the evidence is certainly not encouraging. Although the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education, NATFHE (2001) has suggested that both observers and observees can benefit from the process, Hammersley- Fletcher & Orsmond (2004, p. 499) indicate that peer review runs the “risk of becoming unfocused and therefore of limited developmental advantage”. Their research suggested that both observers and observees were unclear as to the results of the process. Shortland’s (2004, p. 226) evidence indicates that staff completed observation documentation “simply to comply with the managerial requirement to do so, having not actually undertaken the observation”. Even when staff were free to select their own peer reviewer it was found that they remained distrustful of the process or, as Bell (2001) suggests, they were possibly reluctant to engage in observation programmes because they saw them as a form of appraisal in which judgments were made about the level of competence of those being observed. Just as Willmott (2003) has argued in relation to using peers to review research, using peers to review teaching may similarly obstruct the full implementation of the process. Despite the above criticisms, the observation process provides a “rare opportunity for an observer to see and analyse what students are actually doing” (Fullerton, 1999, p. 221) as a result of the actions of the observee. Further, as Barnett (1992, p. 123) argues, “academic knowledge does not count as knowledge without it having been subjected to some kind of peer evaluation”. A difficulty arises however, as Nixon (1997) suggests, when academics consider the duality of their role: as teachers and subject specialists. When they conceive their identity as located within their discipline it is unlikely, Nixon argues, that they will explore with colleagues the shared aims and values of teaching in higher education. Can educational developers therefore assist and “foster greater reflection on teaching styles, strategies, and general teaching philosophies” that Millis (n.d.) argues should be the focus of the observation process? The Educational Developer Observation Model The limitation of using educational developers as observers derives from a belief that without subject knowledge the feedback lacks context. A peer reviewer, with appreciation of the inherent complications of the material can provide feedback on the process, the content and how effectively these corresponded. Gosling (2002, p5) also argued that the educational developer model also presented the risk of a “lack of shared ownership and lack of impact.” However, involving an educational developer who is an ‘external academic’, without distinct disciplinary knowledge appears to offer an opportunity to address some of the negative aspects of the peer review process identified by Gosling in his first two models. The process is made more transparent. Cosser (1998, p152) argues that such ‘external’ observations remain flawed and maintains that despite the apparent neutrality these external observers will remain ‘blinded by their own conceptions’. He argues that you cannot separate content and process without fragmenting the conceptual nature of learning and teaching and therefore rendering it meaningless. The suggestion is that any observational process is judgemental and loaded. Although the ideal is for an observation that is developmental and not judgemental, by the very nature the process has to involve aspects of the latter. The educational developer model overtly acknowledges this. Both parties are aware that evaluation is required to support development and as such there is an element of “power” held by the observer. Evidence from research (Hammersley- Fletcher & Orsmond 2004; Millis, n.d.) also suggests
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