Enhancing Learning and Teaching Quality through Collaborative Observation - Final Report: QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project 2023-24

Executive summary

Enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in higher education (HE) is a policy priority for all HE providers in the UK. Yet current HE policies and institutional practices continue to rely on managerialist approaches that decontextualise learning and teaching as socially situated
practices. As a result, too much emphasis is placed on measuring outcome-focused data such
as module evaluations, student completion and attainment, with too little emphasis on
investigating the processes and experiences of those involved. This has led to the creation of a
vicious policy-practice circle with institutions continuing to concentrate their efforts on doing
more of the same (i.e. measuring learning and teaching) without actually making a tangible
impact on moving knowledge, understanding and practice forward in the field of quality
enhancement. The inspiration for this project came from a frustration and dissatisfaction with
these engrained policies and practices in HE and a desire to want to think and do things
differently.

Enhancing Learning and Teaching Quality through Collaborative Observation (ELTQCO) puts the two most significant players involved in learning and teaching (i.e. students and academic staff) at the centre of the process through an authentic model of collaboration and dialogue that provides situated opportunities for them to work together to understand and improve their learning-teaching experiences. For both the students and staff who participated in the project, pedagogical relationship building was identified as the key to creating the conditions for learning and teaching enhancement to be effective and sustainable for both parties. This
relationship building underpinned the collective sharing and discussion of meaningful learning
and teaching experiences among the participants. Our innovative Cycle of Collaborative
Observation (CoCO) provided the participants with a structured framework for fostering
meaningful pedagogical relationships. It is a genuinely collaborative model that provides
institutions with an authentic approach to addressing the burning question of how students and staff can work better together to understand and enhance the learning-teaching experience for both parties.

Our project findings reinforce the belief that students and academic staff learn about teaching
and learning by interacting with their peers and with each other, by sharing their insights and
experiences in collaborative, cooperative forums. It therefore makes sense that any attempt to
enhance understanding of and improve these practices is best served by allowing its key
participants to be part of a collective community in which they are encouraged to engage in
reflexive dialogue and collective sense making. The case studies included in this report reveal
that creating the conditions in which students and staff have the opportunity to examine their
understanding and experiences of teaching and learning and open them up to dialogic exchange is fundamental to developing greater awareness of the strengths and areas for development in their practices. Participation in CoCO helped to create these shared spaces in which teaching staff were able to come together with their peers, and equally with their students, to engage in reflexive pedagogical dialogue on their classroom teaching and learning, with the ultimate aim of improving the learning experiences for all.