Abstract:

Modifying academic teaching practices has been the challenge of the “pandemic years”. This paper presents the experience of a University dedicated to the Life Sciences in Milan, Humanitas University. The university tried, during the last year, to accompany teachers in the optimization of their teaching practices within contexts that were unfamiliar to them, as hybrid and or online teaching, through the specific tool of teaching observation.

The model of observation that has been chosen was the teaching observation conducted by an expert and not by a peer, to avoid any risk of "intrusion" of the dimension of judgment in the perception of teaching observation and its objectives.
The teachers who participated were also active actors of the process, being able to personalize the observation experience with respect to their needs and desired focuses of attention, starting with a calibration of the observation grid.

The proposal was addressed to the four programmes of the university and the experience gave rise to different paths in terms of faculty development.

The paper highlights how the tool of teaching observation can be able to trigger virtuous reflections in terms of developing effective strategies for faculty development, even and especially in contexts where there is not a long tradition, and therefore experience, in this sense.

Different types of results can be identified.
The teaching observation results as an effective tool to clearly identify the critical areas on which to act, both in terms of training and in terms of the supply of technological tools.
More important, teaching observation has proven to be a key tool for balancing, especially in this period, teachers' perceptions (both in terms of effectiveness and difficulty in adapting to new contexts) and students' evaluations.

Keywords:

Teaching observation, pandemic teaching, academic development.