From 2017 onwards, I led a project to design and implement a process to conduct formative peer review of teaching (FPRT) at UNSW. I brought together a team that included academics with diversity across cultural backgrounds, educational experience, contexts of teaching (undergraduate and postgraduate) and gender, with a critical mix of excellence in teaching and research skills. The team shared a common passion for enhancing the quality of education and held significant leadership positions within educational programs at UNSW Medicine. It was a privilege to lead this team to achieve significant outcomes through the project.
Impact and outcomes: the FPRT process and the research process were subject to peer review at faculty and university level, following which a SEIF grant was awarded under my leadership. I provided leadership to implement FPRT across UNSW Medicine, and subsequent to its success, received invitations from four other faculties to introduce the process in their contexts. I have conducted reviewer training for academics at the faculties of Engineering, Built Environment and FASS.
The impact of this work is evidenced by the following feedback from educational leaders across UNSW:
A/Prof Therese Cumming, Academic Lead Education, Disability Innovation Institute and Scientia Education Academy Fellow: “ … We found the training to be beyond invaluable - particularly the calibration activity, which promulgated much passionate and insightful discussion. It was this training and the meetings with you and your team which have led to the upcoming adoption of the formative peer review process for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. … .”
Dr Dijana Alic, Associate Dean – Education, UNSW Built Environment: “The (FPRT reviewer training) session was instrumental in allowing the UNSW Built Environment to establish its own formative peer review program. … …. The support and engagement provided by Chinthaka’s team in running the workshop and setting up the BE Summative Review Program provides an exemplary case of educational leadership and collaboration.”
Dr Alex Bannigan, Manager – Education Innovation, UNSW Engineering: "Although the Faculty of Engineering has been running a formative Peer Observation of Teaching program since 2014, we have never made any attempt to measure its efficacy or ensure a consistent experience for all participants. The members of the Medicine Formative Peer Review of Teaching team have made important contributions to our program … . … The benchmarking activity, in particular, has proved a very valuable experience for our academics. It never fails to generate rich and passionate debate about what it means to be a “good teacher”.
I was also invited to conduct a tailored session for Education-focused academics on the quality of education, using an adapted version of the FPRT reviewer training package. Feedback on this indicates the impact that it had on the education-focused community.
Associate Professor Louise Lutze-Mann, Director, Education Focussed Career Support, PVCE: “This session was invaluable as it provided a perspective on the dimensions of peer review, insight into how formative peer review could be used to inform and enhance teaching practice and, perhaps most importantly, an opportunity to actually participate in a peer review session. This kind of opportunity is rarely available and was very much appreciated by those who attended the session.”
Anonymised feedback from a participant received through the EF administrative team: “It was very interesting to learn about the peer review process, and I got a lot of inspiration from the peer review activity, as well as the presentations, about what I can improve in my courses.”
I led the development of a webpage dedicated to this project and that serves as an important forum for building awareness amongst academics. In collaboration with the team, I have also led the design of a process to evaluate the impact of FPRT, including a process to review and refine the peer-review instrument. The team (with leadership by Patrick Rawstorne) has also developed an instrument to measure teacher-self-efficacy, before and after the FPRT process. We have also included a qualitative research component to capture data around the process. The overall aim is to not only refine the FPRT process, but also make recommendations to improve the UNSW summative review process.
I have also received invitations to share our experience and conduct staff development workshops at overseas universities and at national and international conferences. These include:
- Workshop for clinical educators at the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka
- An invitation to present on the role of peer review at a symposium at the Asian Medical Education conference (AMEA 2019)
- An invitation to conduct a workshop at the Colombo Conference on Medical Education 2019
- The opportunity to conduct a workshop at the Australasian Association for Engineering Education conference (AAEE 2019).
The following feedback evidences the impact of this work:
Dr. Amaya Ellawala, Conference Chairperson, Colombo Conference on Medical Education 2019: “… I would like to thank you for conducting the (workshop on FPRT), … attended by 45 participants. … the interactive session was of great interest and value to the participants.”
Prof. Kosala Marambe, Head Medical Education Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Peradeniya: “… thank you for conducting the session on (FPRT reviewer training). The participants … rated the session very high.The general feeling was calibration exercise and discussions were very useful to formalise formative peer evaluation in teaching …”