Visit your colleague! week

Next „Visit your Colleague” week takes place in the autumn semester, from 2 to 7 October 2023. 

Participation in the "Visit your Colleague" week is entirely voluntary. During the week, it is possible to participate in different formats of teaching (lectures, seminars, workshops) both in-class, hybrid, and online, and from different fields (social sciences, medicine, natural sciences, humanities). 

One aim of the visiting week is to encourage lecturers to discuss learning and teaching with one another, as all specialities and lecturers share the desire to teach well. In order for the academic community to evolve meaningful conversations between university teachers are crucial. Organised events can act as catalysts for the conversations to happen. The teaching staff say that experiencing their colleagues’ teaching methods enables them to get ideas and encouragement to develop their own teaching, gives assurance about the already functioning solutions and allows them to think about teaching from a new perspective.

Research indicates that peer review of teaching could be perceived as evaluation (Esterhazy et al., 2021), but in our context, these classroom visits intend to support mutual learning and informal discussions on teaching. Therefore, we encourage follow-up peer discussions after each visit.

The week “Visit your Colleague” is organised by the the Centre for Professional Development and the vice rector for academic affairs. It has taken place four times since 2019. About 20-40 classes have been opened for the visit, and about 100 visits have taken place during the week every time. You can view a summary of the event we presented in a conference in Manchester.

Further information: Kaire Uiboleht Kütt (Academic Developer, kaire.uiboleht@ut.ee)