A colleague offers to visit your class, and you say yes. Later you realize you haven't discussed whether the visit is informal feedback, part of a required evaluation, or both. That uncertainty can change how each of you understands the conversation.
The handbook describes peer review as a source of teaching evidence and professional learning. Begin by making the purpose and process clear.
Identify the kind of review
Check whether the activity is a developmental exchange, a formal review, or another defined process. Learn the requirements for your situation, including reviewer selection, materials, timing, and use of the resulting record.
Don't assume a friendly conversation and a personnel-review document follow the same rules.
Choose a useful focus
You might want feedback on an explanation, discussion pattern, assignment sequence, or another aspect of the course. For a formal review, use the required criteria. Explain any additional question within the process that applies.
A defined focus gives the reviewer something more useful to examine than whether the class felt generally successful.
Provide appropriate context
Explain the course level, learning goals, place in the sequence, and relevant teaching decisions. Identify the permitted materials that can help the reviewer understand the lesson or course.
Context should support interpretation without supplying a preferred conclusion.
Clarify the evidence and its limits
A class observation, course materials, feedback, and other records show different things. Agree on what will be examined and how it relates to the purpose. One lesson offers a limited view of a larger teaching record.
Ask for observations and reasoning that distinguish what was seen from what is inferred.
Plan the conversation and follow-through
Confirm how feedback will be discussed, documented, and used. Follow the relevant confidentiality and access rules. Decide how you'll identify a practical next step after receiving the response.
A useful review can recognize strengths and reveal a question that needs more evidence. It doesn't have to produce an instant solution to every teaching problem.
Before scheduling the next review, write down its purpose, focus, materials, and use of the report. Confirm that understanding with the appropriate people. You'll have a clearer basis for both the observation and the learning that follows.
Adapted from The New Faculty Handbook by Zafer Unal, pp. 197-198.
