Using video-reflection and peer mentoring to enhance tutors' teaching

Tutors have an important teaching role in higher education (HE), but rarely receive professional development beyond one-off generic workshops or seminars. Any feedback on their teaching is typically in the form of an evaluation, rather than focussed on enhancing tutors' teaching practice. To address this gap, we devised a professional development programme that incorporated video-recorded observations, informal student feedback, self-reflection, and peer mentoring. Twelve tutors and six mentors participated in the programme. Data included focus group interviews and audio-recorded meetings between mentors and tutors. Benefits to tutors included enhanced self-reflection, collegiality, increased confidence in teaching ability, and positive outcomes for their students' learning. The interdisciplinary pairing of tutors and mentors resulted in dialogue that was non-evaluative, supportive, and collegial. We argue that video-recorded observations combined with peer mentoring and student feedback can enhance teaching quality by providing tutors with contextual, relevant, and individualised professional development.