Teachers Helping Teachers: Peer Observation and Assistance

Peer observation and assistance (POA) is a method that has been designed to assist teachers in pooling their knowledge and experience and refining their skills without the threat created by a supervisor’s evaluation. A comprehensive research-based text on the subject, this book isolates behaviours and skills that are consistently shown to raise student achievement levels and describes the process by which teachers can help their peers improve performance in these important areas. Focusing on subject matter as well as instruction, classroom management, and interpersonal techniques, POA allows specific behavioural skills and techniques to be isolated, identified, observed, and recorded at the request of the teacher being observed. The authors explain the phases of POA, the types of observational techniques that may be used, and the feedback conference that follows. A chapter on action research is included as a guide to testing the effectiveness of individual teaching techniques within the teacher’s own classroom. The process can be applied to any type of student, from preschool through high education professionals. Although the study is geared primarily to the process of peer observation and assistance, it also offers a wealth of new information for preservice and working teachers.