Class Visits

The purpose of class visits

Over the last 5 years we have been focussing on the experience of learners and learning in class visits, and using professional dialogue and collaboration between tutors to develop our practice.

Class visits and follow up meetings are designed to help us reflect on our classes with colleagues. The visitor is an additional 'lens' in our classroom, with the time and space to notice what is happening from the perspective of the students. They are not there to 'assess' a tutor's teaching as there are many ways of creating an effective learning environment. The visitor looks primarily at how students are experiencing the class and, if possible, talks to them about their learning. Follow-up can be through a one-to-one dialogue with the tutor, or a team meeting of tutors looking holistically at courses and not just the session that is visited.

Although the purpose of class visits is designed as an opportunity for discussion and development, in rare instances we may have to intervene if we think students are not having a good learning experience. In this case we first offer more support to help tutors improve.

Types of visits

1 Advisory visits for new tutors

Every new tutor will receive an advisory visit from their department. The purpose of this is to support you, help you think through any issues or concerns and to make sure you have settled into City Lit.

An advisory visit is normally an hour long, followed by a discussion with your visitor and a report which summarises your discussion and any development plans you have agreed.

You will be visited again before the end of your probation period to check you are confident with your practice.

2 Class Drop-ins and Tutor Conversation Meetings.

Class Drop-ins

Once you have settled into City Lit, your classes will be visited from time to time as part of our professional development cycle. The type and length of the visit will depend on your department's projects and your development plan, for instance you may be part of a project where visitors will do a series of "drop-ins".

Drop-ins are brief visits from someone in your department - usually about 15 minutes. Their purpose is to visit a broad range of classes to see how students are experiencing learning in a subject area. As they are short, class visitors can notice only the key flavour and themes that characterise students’ learning experience.

Tutor Conversation Meetings

Following a drop in you will usually be invited to a tutor conversation meeting.

Tutor conversation meetings are typically in 3 parts - an initial meeting, a period of time for trialling new approaches in your class, and a final evaluation/reflection (either in a meeting or as a written document).

Tutors initially meet together to reflect on teaching and learning, to share ideas on what works well - or less well - in their classes with a focus on learning and the learners. Class visitors participate in these discussions as teachers and colleagues. They may also raise any themes they noticed on their visits, and any questions they might have. For example: ‘We noticed that some students had their videos turned off in Zoom classes. We wondered whether this might have an impact on their learning, and how it might impact on other students. What is your experience?’ This should lead to professional reflection and discussion by the group. Is it a problem or not? Is there anything to be done about it?

From these meetings, tutors should leave with ideas of what they are happy with and anything (often small things) they can do to develop their teaching. They are then asked to trial this and reflect on what aspects were successful, or less successful, at the end of the process.

Tutors receive payment for completing this process.

3 Full class visits

Departments also do some ‘full class visits’ which last around an hour. Full class visits can be for a variety of reasons:

a tutor is new to City Lit or new to teaching a particular subject (advisory visit)
a tutor has not been visited for a while
subjects where teaching is more complex and tutors need more detailed support
as part of an 'Area Spotlight' where the department wants to look at an area of the curriculum in depth to see how it is working as a whole. The whole teaching team comes together at the end to reflect and contribute to the discussion
tutors who ask for visits - for a chance to use the visitor as another ‘lens’ on their class and to reflect with them afterwards
more rarely - when the department is worried about the quality of learning in a class

The visitor will take the same non-judgmental approach and be working on the same principles as class drop ins; they will be looking at the learning experience and noticing what is happening.

A full class visit is followed by a one-to-one professional discussion, exploring aspects of learning on the whole course. You will receive a report which reflects on what has been discussed and detailing any agreed follow up as part of your development plan.

Principles and characteristics of effective learning at City Lit

These outline our aspirations for all our students at City Lit. You can read them below. They are not designed as a 'checklist' of things for the visitor to see; more as a way to provoke discussion between tutors and visitors.

Principles and characteristics of effective adult learning at City Lit .docx

Tutors say:

My experience of the full class visit: I was naturally apprehensive beforehand and felt, whatever the intention, that I would be judged, but at the same time, I wanted feedback on this new method of online teaching.

The visit was very competent and non-disruptive. The feedback meeting afterwards was constructive and I felt I benefitted from M’s detailed observations. It's hard when you're in the middle of it, to observe what is going well or not so well, and to have any point of comparison, especially over Zoom. It was reassuring to have one's own feelings validated. I don't think tutors need to feel anxious or that they are being judged. It is a good way of checking that what you think you are achieving in your teaching is happening”.

Creative Writing tutor

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