Suggested Steps for Conducting a Peer Review of
Teaching
1-If the review is not initiated by the instructor, inform the instructor by letter during the
term before the review is to occur that a review has been scheduled, state the reasons for
the review, and suggest what the instructor should do to prepare for the review.
2-Early in the semester during which the review will take place, meet with the instructor
(a) to discuss the review's purpose in more detail and to decide on the elements of the
instructor's teaching to be focused on most fully,
(b) to create a schedule for the submission of appropriate course materials to the reviewer
(potentially including syllabi, assignment descriptions, other handouts, printouts of
instructor website materials, and graded assignments),
(c) to decide on dates for classroom observations,
(d) to discuss the place that written student evaluations will have in the review process
(e) to decide whether interviews with students, using the standard interview script
approved by the Teaching Evaluation Committee, will be included in the review process
and who the interviewed student will be,
(f) to determine whether (and when) the instructor will submit a "philosophy of teaching"
statement,
(g) to talk over the way in which the reviewer will submit evaluative comments to the
instructor and to any supervisory personnel (N.B.--not every review purpose requires a
written report, but if such a report is to be produced, the instructor should know who will
have access to it and where it will be stored),
(h) to establish whether (and in what form) the reviewed instructor may respond to any
written review report that is produced.
3-Keep as closely as possible to the review procedures and schedule established in the
discussion described above, making adjustments only after further discussion has taken
place between the reviewer and the instructor being reviewed.
4-Finish the review process by the end of finals week of the semester in which the
classroom observations were made by the reviewer and course materials submitted by the
instructor.
Yearly Peer Review Guidelines for Faculty
1. PTE publishes the review assignments for the year in January of review year
(review years are calendar years).
2. The reviewee contacts his or her reviewers and together they determine process.
3. The reviewee gives material agreed upon by both parties (such as syllabus,
example assignment sheet) to the reviewer.
4. Reviewer and reviewee agree about a class visit day and time.
5. Reviewer reviews class materials and visits class at agreed upon time.
6. Reviewer writes a review report and gives a copy to the reviewee, setting up a
time to talk about the report.
7. Both parties meet to talk about the report and the reviewee's teaching (emphasis
on mentoring), and they negotiate final wording of the report. Reviewee may
attach her or his own response to the report.
8. The final version of the report is signed by reviewer and given to reviewee, who
signs it. If the reviewee wrote a response to the report, this too must be signed by
both parties.
9. The reviewer gives a copy of the report to the reviewee, but gives the
official signed report and response (if there is one) to the chair of the PTE
Committee.
10. After PTE reviews the reports, they pass them on to the Head of the department
no later than February 15 of the year following reviews for use in the annual
performance reviews.
11. When the Head has finished using them, he or she places them in the faculty
member's official file kept in the English Department.