Visit a Classroom is a structured, but relaxed, way to talk with other faculty about teaching and reflect on new ideas you can try in your own class. Based on Teaching Squares, a program offered at many other universities, Visit a Classroom connects three faculty colleagues to share teaching experiences and practices in a non-evaluative way. The goal of Visit a Classroom is not to give feedback on colleagues’ teaching (or to get feedback oneself), but instead to learn and get teaching ideas from seeing colleagues’ practices. 

“It’s an opportunity for faculty to reflect on their own teaching in light of colleagues’ teaching examples. Could I do something like that? Would that approach work with the content I teach? I might be able to use that, but what would I need to change so that it better fits with my teaching style? Are my students ready for a strategy like that? It’s a constructive way to confront current teaching practices in light of some potential alternatives.”

– ”Teaching Squares Bring Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives,” accessed 8/10/2022.

How it works:

Once you submit your application, Learning Innovation will match you with two colleagues who are teaching the same semester (depending on how many applications we get, this matching process may take some time). You’ll have an introductory meeting with your colleagues (over lunch or coffee, perhaps) to talk about your courses and schedule a time to visit each other’s classroom.

We will provide you with guidance on how to observe the classes with an eye towards reflecting on your own teaching and highlighting methods you see on the visits that you can adapt and use in your own courses.

After the classroom visits, you’ll meet again with your two colleagues to reflect on what you learned about your own teaching by observing the other classes, and exchange other ideas on teaching at Duke.
Visit a Classroom is available to any Duke faculty member or instructor teaching during the current semester, and applications are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year.  Graduate student instructors can sign up for a similar program, Teaching Triangles, offered by the Graduate School.