Teaching Observation

Teaching Observation CUNY Mandates, York College Forms and Workflow

CUNY Mandates

Learn about the CUNY mandates for Teaching Observation in the linked Article 18: Professional Evaluation of the PSC CUNY contract and in the Classroom Teaching Observations of Online Courses section of the linked Memorandum of Agreement - PSC CUNY (psc-cuny.org).

Tips for reading and finding answers to specific questions: Open Article 18 and the Memorandum in (the latest version of) the Microsoft Edge browser.  Open the Bing Chat by clicking on the blue "b" icon in the upper right corner. Select the Precise answer style.  Then formulate your question in the “Ask me anything box.” 

Below are some suggested prompts we tested. Feel free to copy and paste. 

• What does the contract say about a post-observation conference?

• According to the section on Classroom Teaching Observations in this Memorandum, who needs to be observed?  

• Please create an exhaustive list of the questions and answers this page provides regarding Teaching Observations. 
  Follow up: Please reformat the list as Q and A. 

• How is the Teaching Observation different for different teaching modalities? 

• Who needs to notify whom, when and for what? 

• Please read the Classroom Teaching Observation section of this page and describe the workflow for each teaching modality. 

Answers are posted in less than a minute.  To check for accuracy, click on the numbers that look like footnotes: this will highlight the sentence in the doc that is the source of the answer. 

York College Teaching Observation Report

About

To learn more, click on the screenshot of the Table of Content (TOC) below.

Two Formats

Teaching Observation Report Form in two formats

Integrated format

Non-Integrated format

Applications to open, view and edit the forms

Each of the apps below will let you open, view and edit the forms. Be sure to use the latest version of the app you'll use. Fill out requested information by clicking on the light-blue text boxes. Also, be sure to save a copy of the completed form to your computer.  

• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Microsoft Edge PDF Reader
• Mozilla Firefox PDF Viewer
• Preview App on Apple iOS

Workflow

Please note that certain fields in the forms will be prepopulated with the information provided earlier in the process.
We recommend that the observer fill out the Teaching Observation Report section, then shares the form with the instructor to be observed, giving them the opportunity to complete the Pre-Observation Section.

Downloadable Forms

Workflow for Online Asynchronous Courses (and Hybrid Courses if needed) 

When the observer needs to be enrolled in Brightspace:   

1. At the start of the third week of the semester, department chairs or their delegates will begin to complete the linked Teaching Observation Enrollment Request Form.

2. At the start of the fourth week in the semester, on the designated dates based on the "Teaching Observation Enrollment Form," the CTLET LMS Support Team will enroll appointed observers as “Observer” in the course site(s) they are going to observe. Note: please take into consideration that we do not enroll during the weekend.  

3. At the end of the 48-hour observation period the CTLET LMS Support Team will unenroll the observer from the course they observed. Note: please take into consideration that we do not unenroll during the weekend.

For Synchronous Online Courses 

Observers need not be enrolled in the course. Instructors to be observed will send a guest link for their session in Zoom or Teams to the observer.