You know, in that post from Dart that was cited in the bugs folder, it says this about observing a class:

<<You'll learn teaching just as well as if they were teaching teaching, and you'll get a bit of the subject as well.>>

If that were true, though, it shouldn't matter what subject is being taught or what the relative skills of the teacher and student are in that subject. That, however, is clearly not the case. Observing the same teacher teach two different skills can yield two very different results as far as the student's Teaching experience gain is concerned. And it's annoying, because more often than not it ends up being a complete waste of time to even bother observing. But this does suggest that there may be a reason to listen to someone teach Teaching rather than observing them teach something else.

Thanks,
-Death's Nemesis Karthor

Karthor,

In another post, he said essentially what observing does is it swaps the experience gain of teaching with the skill being taught. Basically like this for listening to TM (completely made up numbers):

TM gains 400 bits per pulse
Scholarship gains 200
Teaching gains 100

If you observe that class instead:

Teaching gains 400
Scholarship gains 200
TM gains 100

This is very consistent with the way I feel the system works. This also means that you're best off observing a class where the teacher is teaching a skill they're very good at -- and on top of that that it's a skill which you are primary in. eg, I learn teaching the best from observing when I observe a magic class -- and best if the teacher is actually good at the skill in question.