Teaching Observations

CTSI’s Teaching Observations service is intended to provide instructors with formative feedback on their instructional practices in a class session (face-to-face or online synchronous). At an instructor’s request, a Faculty Liaison from CTSI and/or a divisional educational developer/technologist attends a class session for one hour and provides constructive feedback. Teaching Observations are an effective means to gather formative feedback on one’s teaching in a low-risk context and to explore ways to strengthen instructional practices and achieve goals for student learning.

The Teaching Observations process occurs in three stages:

  • Stage 1: The instructor and observer meet for 30 minutes to determine the focus of the observation. This meeting can be online or in person.
  • Stage 2: The observer spends 1 hour observing the instructor’s class session.
  • Stage 3: The instructor and observer meet for 1 hour to discuss the feedback from the observation. Again, this follow-up consultation can take place virtually or face-to-face.

Please note:

  • When completing the request form, you can indicate your preferred timeline for the Teaching Observation. We will do our best to arrange the review according to these dates and thank you in advance for your understanding.
  • Teaching Observations will be conducted during regular business hours (9am-5pm). Unfortunately, we are unable to conduct teaching observations for evening classes.
  • Teaching Observations should not be scheduled for the first or last day of class in a term, nor during sessions with tests/exams or guest lecturers.
  • A Teaching Observation does not include a review of asynchronous materials (e.g., digital assets or other recorded sessions) and/or the Quercus course site. If this is of interest to you, learn more about requesting a Quercus Course Review.
  • A Teaching Observation will ideally occur during a live session. In the case of an online synchronous observation, when observing a live session is not possible, we can observe a recording of a previous synchronous session.
  • Academic units cannot request a Teaching Observation as part of a summative teaching evaluation process.
    The Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation (CTSI) will not conduct Teaching Observations as a formal part of a tenure or continuing status review, nor as part of a job application process.