Peer review of teaching at the University of Oregon serves as one of three sources of information used to inform the teaching evaluation process. At the Provost’s Teaching Academy meeting on February 9, 2024, we discussed peer review of teaching did some brainstorming about ways to make it better and more useful and fair for both the faculty member under review and those who use the reviews in summative teaching evaluation. We also thought about the barriers to implementing those ideas and possible solutions. Here we summarize the main problems people identified and the possible solutions they proposed.

Problem: Inconsistent reviews

• Solution 1: All reviews follow unit’s policy. As units develop their new peer review policies, they specify the criteria reviewers must look for, the sources of evidence they consider, and the templates they use to write the review. All peer reviews are required to follow the policy, which should help make reviews more consistent from reviewer to reviewer.
• Solution 2: Unit-level peer review committee. The unit establishes a peer review committee, a small group of people who conduct all the reviews needed in the unit. Ideally, membership on the committee would be structured so that it always has some experienced people on it. This committee counts toward members’ service.
• Solution 3: Peer review training. Anyone who will do a review, and possibly also those who will be reviewed, will participate in a review training session at the beginning of the year. In addition to a discussion of the review criteria and templates, the training will include a practice session, ideally in a real class or live demonstration. The reviews generated during training could be compared and reconciled to help reviewers learn what to look for. Training could be facilitated within the unit or externally, perhaps by TEP when we have capacity.
• Solution 4: College- or university-level peer review committee. (A longer-term possibility.) Faculty from across campus could be trained to do peer reviews and deployed as part of their service. TEP could train and coordinate this group.

Problem: Conflict between desire for formative feedback about teaching and the summative nature of teaching evaluation.

• Solution 1: Require formative feedback. Units write their peer review templates to require inclusion of formative feedback. Making this policy standard across the unit, normalizing the idea, and explaining the requirement in reports that get passed to the college and provost level will prevent the unit’s reviews from being compared unfavorably with those from other units that do not require formative feedback.
• Solution 2: Require attention to reviewee’s goals. The unit’s policy could specify that at the beginning of the review, the reviewee identifies one or two areas they are working on or would like feedback about. The reviewer then provides formative feedback about these areas in the review. Similar to #1 above, making this policy standard across the unit, normalizing it, and being clear about the requirement in reports should prevent any negative effects of the policy.
• Solution 3: Separate formative reviews. Formative/safe zone reviews added to the schedule of summative, on the record reviews. The administrative duties associated with these formative reviews (keeping track of who is up for formative review, assigning reviewers, etc.) are merged with those for the summative reviews. To reduce the faculty workload associated with the formative reviews, they could focus on a single source of evidence rather than all the sources of evidence considered in summative reviews. For example, one formative review might only look at the syllabus, the next at the Canvas site, and the next would only include a class visit.
• Solution 4: Written review more focused than oral discussion. While the written peer review must follow the template adopted by the unit, the peer review wrap-up conversation can have a wider range than the template.
• Solution 5: Feedback festival. All instructional faculty in the unit participate in a yearly Feedback Festival, in which each faculty member either: opens their classroom for a day, inviting colleagues to observe and provide feedback; makes their course documents available for comment; or arranges for interested colleagues to provide feedback on the course Canvas site. Each faculty member eligible to act as a reviewer is required to sign up for at least one of these activities. Entry level faculty are also encouraged to provide feedback to colleagues through the Feedback Festival. Participation in the Feedback Festival counts toward engaged teaching in peer review.
• Solution 6: Teaching improvement plan. The reviewer and reviewee work together to create a teaching improvement plan, which is separate from the peer review report. The reviewee will discuss the improvement plan in their annual report, along with the efforts they have made to work on the areas identified in it. In addition, the teaching improvement plan and associated work will count toward engaged teaching in subsequent peer reviews and in self-presentation associated with promotion and tenure and merit assessment.

Problem: A single class observation might not be representative of the whole course.

• Solution 1: Gather evidence from a variety of sources. The unit’s policy could require reviewers to gather and assess a variety of materials, such as the syllabus, the Canvas site, and a class observation.
• Solution 2: Evidence from multiple class sessions. Reviewers might attend multiple sessions, attend one session and view student-made recordings of additional sessions, or attend on session and review detailed lesson plans for another one or two meetings.

Problem: Different types of courses might require specialized reviewer knowledge or review instruments.

• Solution 1: Reviewer pool includes sufficient disciplinary expertise or an expert is consulted. If the unit establishes a peer review committee, care should be taken to make sure it includes a sufficient number of representatives from the various sub-disciplines. If this is not possible, a person who is not a member of the committee, for example someone from another unit who has appropriate disciplinary expertise, could act as a consultant, perhaps reviewing course materials or a lesson plan.
• Solution 2: Peer review template has sections specific to particular course types. If particular course types require specialized pedagogies distinct from what is needed for other courses in the discipline, the peer review template could include a general section applicable to all courses and then special section(s) with prompts specific to the specialized course type. The reviewer would complete the general section and, if needed, one of the specialized sections.

Problem: Students don’t provide feedback on specific areas faculty are working on.

• Solution 1: Instructor adds questions to Student Experience Survey. Faculty can add up to two questions of their own choosing to the Student Experience Survey. Only the instructor can see the responses to these added questions, so if they want others to be able to use the results, the instructor would have to deliberately share them with the reviewer and/or the teaching evaluation committee.

Other interesting ideas

• Idea 1: Three-person teams review each other. A reviews B, B reviews C, C reviews A. Discussion happens 3 times together, everyone signs peer review form!
• Idea 2: Three-person teams do peer reviews. To spread out the work and reduce likelihood of bias, one person looks at materials, one at Canvas, and one reviews course meeting. They all meet and discuss to generate