This episode features Tim Herrick, Ana Souto & Rebecca Godwin reporting back about their findings of a RAISE-funded project to evaluate the impact of two student observation of teaching schemes - Students as Teaching Observers at Nottingham Trent University, and Student Observation of Teaching at the University of Sheffield. Both place students and staff volunteers in small groups to discuss learning and teaching, based on a specific experience such as the student members observing and offering feedback on some of the staff member’s practice. While similar in purpose, SOOT has been established since 2017, and SaTO first ran in 2023; and the two schemes have slightly different remits. Each scheme engages with relevant literature around student observation of teaching (e.g. Cook-Sather, Bovill, and Felten, 2014; O’Leary and Cui, 2020; Herrick and Shotts, 2024), and is closely intertwined with RAISE events and priorities.

They talk about how they wanted to understand the difference that both schemes were making to students and staff, and were fortunate to secure RAISE funding to evaluate their impact. At the time of recording, the evaluation had yet to be conducted; however, they hope that it produces results that highlight areas where our schemes are working well, and those where they could be developed further. They also hope they are able to use these insights in combination with their experiences of developing and running such schemes to present a toolkit of approaches to student-staff teaching observations that can be utilised at other institutions.

Please contact Tim or Ana for more information.