Portrait of Helen Keller and her teacher/companion Anne Sullivan facing each other, 1890s. Glass negative.

This post links to a template for a peer observation of teaching activity. It's been designed for university teaching, but is flexible enough to be applied to other contexts too. Peer observation can feel quite threatening, this template is designed to encourage structured conversations with meaningful outcomes that can be acted on.

Peer Observation of Teaching template (google doc)

I created this template as part of a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education I completed in 2021. I had to write a motivation for the worksheet as part of the activity, and I've made that available too, to explain the motivation behind some of the design choices.

Peer Observation of Teaching - motivation of the template (google doc)

I've used this form in peer observation, and had people use it to provide structured feedback on my teaching. I've shared it often enough that I thought I'd post it publically here for anyone else who might find it useful.

December 2nd 1837 saw the birth in Edinburgh of Joseph Bell.

Bell became a lecturer in medicine whose deductive approach to diagnosis inspired Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes.

Joseph Bell attended the Edinburgh Academy before studying medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He graduated with his MD in 1859 and became a house surgeon at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary under James Syme. He then went on to become a demonstrator in anatomy at the University of Edinburgh Medical School before becoming a lecturer in surgery and in clinical surgery. He also started the first nurses' training course in Scotland at the Royal Infirmary. He was also personal surgeon to Queen Victoria whenever she was in Edinburgh, and became a Justice of the Peace, and a Deputy Lord Lieutenant.

Among his students and contemporaries Bell became famous for his ability to make swift and accurate diagnoses of patients, often on the basis of close observation of clues that others simply never saw. His party-piece was to pick a stranger and, through

observation, deduce his occupation and recent activities. One of Bell's students in 1877 was Arthur Conan Doyle.

Bell clearly made a strong impression on Doyle. In 1887 the latter published A Study in Scarlet which marked the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes was explicitly modelled on Joseph Bell and Doyle later wrote a letter to him saying: "It is most certainly to you that I owe Sherlock Holmes although, in the stories, I have the advantage of being able to place him in all sorts of dramatic situations". It is said that Bell took considerable pride in the success of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Joseph Bell died in 1911. He was buried in Edinburgh's Dean Cemetery next to his wife, Edith Murray. In November 2004, the US Fox TV network aired the first episode of the American medical drama House, starring the English actor Hugh Laurie. The creator of the series has described it as "a subtle homage to Sherlock Holmes": which in many ways brings the setting for the character full circle back to its medical roots and to Joseph Bell. He is remembered more directly in the name of the Joseph Bell Centre, established in 2001 as a centre for Forensic Statistics and Legal Reasoning by the University of Edinburgh, Glasgow Caledonian University and the Lothian & Borders Police Forensic Science Laboratory.

Conan Doyle described Bell as “a tall, stately, kindly man, keen eyes and aquiline features contributing to his air of intent investigation.”