Learning Experience Observer Program
We are currently recruiting instructors to be faculty partners for Fall 2024! If you are interested in thinking deeply about teaching and learning, please fill out our application form. If you know someone who might be interested in the program, please send us their information at ctl@claremont.edu.
We will be recruiting students to serve as observers next semester, as well. This is a paid position ($17/hr) with a 4-6 hour per week commitment for the duration of a semester. Instructors can nominate or suggest students that might be interested in the position by emailing us at ctl@claremont.edu.
Learning Experience Observers (LEOs)
The Learning Experience Observer (LEO) Program is a partnership between two people: a trained student observer and a faculty partner who collaborate throughout the semester, delving deep into the learning experience and foundations of a course. The student observes and takes notes during all scheduled class time for one course. These partnerships challenge traditional pedagogical models in which information is transmitted by the teacher to the students and, instead, encourages open dialogue and feedback. Student observers serve as “legitimate informants”¹ and consultants who help to shape the educational experience for other students.
These student-faculty partnerships are collaborative, reciprocal, and non-evaluative. Students provide formative feedback for a course throughout an entire semester and meet with faculty partners regularly to discuss their observations, feedback, and ideas. The student observers can also act as a liaison between the students and the professor by collecting student feedback. The CTL staff meets with student observers weekly and with faculty partners twice per semester to provide ongoing support and training.
If you are interested, or want more information, please fill out this form. We highly recommend waiting to apply until after your first year of teaching at the Claremont Colleges in order to get the most out of the program. The CTL can support up to twelve partnerships per semester. We will prioritize first-time applicants.
- Cook-Sather, Bovill, and Felten, Engaging students as partners in learning and teaching: A guide for faculty, 2014, p. 16
The Learning Experience Observation Program is not designed to bring about change for its own sake, but to achieve a deeper understanding of teaching and learning that comes from shared analysis and revision. The goals of this program are to:
- Allow faculty and students to explore questions relating to teaching and learning in an affirming way so as to improve and develop effective classroom practices,
- Foster open, critical, constructive dialogue between faculty and students in support of good teaching,
- Support a culture at the Claremont Colleges where dialogues about teaching and learning among faculty and students is natural, common, and desired.
This program relies heavily on a productive partnership between students and faculty. We hope that the partnership between the student observer and faculty partner will demonstrate these three R’s:
- Respect = an attitude in which one takes seriously and values what someone else brings to an encounter; an openness and willingness to consider experiences and perspectives that are different from our own; requires withholding of judgment
- Reciprocity = though student observer and faculty partner have different perspectives and expertise and the faculty remains the authority over the class, their interaction is characterized by a balanced give-and-take
- Responsibility = Reliability, trustworthiness that allow both student observer and faculty partner to rely on the other for contributions to learning in the classroom
Since the student observer and faculty partner typically do not know each other beforehand, we do not expect these partnerships to emerge in full bloom—instead, they grow over time. Student observers typically sit quietly in class and record notes. The student observer and faculty partner will meet about once a week to go over those notes and discuss new questions and ideas. The student observer will meet regularly with CTL staff for ongoing training and support.