Resumen de Using the technology moso to support the teachingobservations in collegial intervision in teaching developmentof academic staff
The presentation based on this paper presents the findings of an action research study at RoskildeUniversity (Denmark), where the educational development team used new software, MOSO, as a toolto support teaching development of academic staff through the process we call Collegial Intervision (CI).MOSO is a research-based software platform for practical teacher training. It was introduced to enhanceCI – a specific approach to teaching development based on peer observation of teaching (POT). At RU,the CI process consists of academics working in small teams to observe a peer’s teaching practice, andthen collegially discuss and reflect on strengths and areas for improvement. An going challenge in the Intervisiondialogue sessions has been a tendency for generalized and abstract discussions, rather than criticalreflections on specific observed practices. Based on the hypothesis that this is a result of the quality ofthe observation notes and a time delay between observation and dialogue session, it was decided to pilotMOSO in this semester as its introduction, with capabilities to synthesize written notes, photographs andvideo of teaching observations, could represent a way of addressing these concerns. The action researchstudy described here focuses on evaluating the impact of MOSO, through an analysis of how its use is influencingthe teaching development process in three Intervision groups in one semester. The objective ofthe action research study is to explore if the use of MOSO technology effectively addresses the challengesdescribed. The action research study makes use of multiple empirical data sources, including observationsof teachers as they use MOSO – both in the observation of teaching and in the reflective discussionsessions afterwards. In addition, the dataset includes the course evaluations. While this paper briefly outlinesthe current preliminary observations, the presentation at the conference will include the additionalfindings of the action research study, which will be finalised in May at the end of the semester.
