Peer Review Article

By Terry Funk 
CA

Alabi, J. & Weare, Jr., W. H.  (2014). Peer review of teaching. Communications in Information Literacy, 8(2), 180-191.

Summary: This article is helpful to academic librarians who engage in instruction but may lack a teaching background. The authors have presented a review of the literature and best practices in peer review to help individuals improve in teaching.  A formal program is not necessary to start an informal process using key ideas in this article. Recommendations include: establishing trust, respect, and confidentiality; choosing a suitable partner; crucial communication during pre-observation, observation and post-observation; determining focus; making time and being ready for criticism.

Evaluation: This is a recent review of the literature done in 2014 with a narrowly defined focus on formative peer evaluations. It is both informative and succinct, detailing successful practices that can be tailored to one’s situation. The article is chock full of references and tools (documents and forms) to use for peer evaluation.