Collaborative Classroom Visits

Collaborative Professional Learning Experiences: CCVs (Collaborative Classroom Visits)

Developed as an experience to support teachers to reflect on their instructional purpose and practices connected to our school's theory of action, a collaborative classroom visit (CCV) brings a classroom teacher together with an administrator, school and/or departmental colleagues, and an instructional coach through a process that includes a pre-conference, a classroom visit, and a post-conference. CCVs began at OHS during the 2015-16 school year. During this initial year, 29 CCVs were conducted in total and all teachers participated as a host and/or a visitor. Each CCV follows an established protocol to ensure consistency across experiences. The power of collaborative classroom visits is twofold. First, a teacher articulates their thinking about how a lesson connects to the OHS Theory of Action by completing and sharing an instructional purpose sheet during the pre-conference. Second, the visitors learn with and from colleagues and students in authentic ways as they share descriptive noticings and wonderings. Administrators are working with teachers to focus on the instructional core, and all educators are learning from each other, which leads to reflection on their own practices that forward the school’s theory of action.

Link to a detailed description of the CCV Protocol