School Visit Protocol
2015-16
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Part 1: Purpose of the CW School Visit
A. Purpose
Visiting schools that are implementing the Collaborative Work (CW) will provide key insight into the daily
functioning of CW schools. Data collected during the visit will be used to assist the CW Management Team in
decisions regarding the project. Results will not be used for job performance evaluations of building staff or
decisions regarding future participation of the building in the CW.
The CW Management Team seeks to answer the following questions:
1) How do Collaborative Data Teams operate in the school (i.e., composition, schedule, teaming
mechanisms, roles)?
2) How are Common Formative Assessments used throughout the school?
3) How do staff members work together to select, master, and implement effective teaching/learning
practices?
4) How has the CW training/support received from the RPDC impacted school culture, educator
practices, and student performance?
B. School Visit Team
School visits will be conducted by a small group of CW Management Team members led by Pam Williams and
Ginger Henry from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
C. Building Selection Criteria
Buildings will be nominated by each RPDC because they are proficient or nearing proficiency at implementing
components of the CW, including CFA, DBDM, CDT and effective teaching and learning practices.
D. How School Visit Data Will Be Used
The data collected from school visits is useful to stakeholders at multiple levels:
 Building Staff: Data collected can be used to facilitate self-reflection and help local teams strategize to
ensure continuous improvement.
 Project Staff: Data collected provides information about specific implementation strategies and barriers
and helps leadership better understand how to support buildings.
 RPDC Staff: Data collected provides information about implementation of the Collaborative Work.
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Part 2: CW School Visit Components
CW school visits will consist of diverse conversations and observations in order to establish a comprehensive
picture of what implementation looks like throughout the school.
 Meeting with the building principal
 Multiple brief classroom walkthroughs
 Teacher focus group
 Debriefing session
Part 3: Preparing for a CW School Visit
Based on data, principals will be invited to host a half-day school visit where he/she will:
 Schedule a 30-minute meeting with principal
 Schedule one 40-minute focus groups, each with 4-6 instructional faculty/staff
 Schedule three-five total classroom observations (approx. 15 minutes in length; these can be concurrent)
 Schedule a 15-minute debrief meeting with school principal and/or leadership
 Provide a meeting room for the CW team to use during their visit
Collaborative Data Teams are an important element to this project. During the school visit, the principal should
be prepared to share the following documents:
 Meeting materials:
o CDT meeting schedule
o Two to three agendas from past/future meetings
o Minutes from one past meeting
o Completed self-assessment (make easy for school to complete and submit). We provide
summarized self-assessment data to them prior to site visit.
 Have each teacher bring one sample of four to five Common Formative Assessments administered
during the last quarter to focus group.
Part 4: CW School Visit Protocol
A. Meeting with Principal
The principal will meet with the CW school visit team for approximately 30 minutes at the beginning of the
visit to provide basic information about the building’s receipt of CW training, changes in daily practice to
support implementation, outcomes observed as a result of the project, and school culture.
Discuss summary results from self-assessment
B. Classroom Walkthroughs
Each individual school visit team member will conduct one approximately 15-minute classroom walkthrough to
observe teachers implementing the selected effective instructional practices. By collecting multiple snapshots of
implementation through these observations, the school visit team will construct a more complete picture of what
implementation looks like across diverse instructional settings. These results will not be used to evaluate
teachers.
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C. Faculty & Staff Focus Groups
A 40-minute focus groups will allow CW school visit members to learn more about how Common Formative
Assessments and data-based decision making are used within the school. The focus group should consist of a
heterogeneous range of teachers who are currently implementing effective teaching practices and developing,
using, and submitting data from CFAs. Members of the administrative/leadership team are not included in this
focus groups. During the school visit, the focus group of instructional staff will discuss and complete the
Practice Profile and Fidelity Checklist from the CDT and CFA learning packages.
D. CW School visit team Reflection Time
The school will provide a room for the CW school visit members to hold two approximately 15 minute
meetings during the day in order to share notes from classroom observations and preparing for the debriefing
discussion with the principal.
E. Debrief meeting
At the conclusion of the school visit, the principal will meet with the CW school visit team members to discuss
the most important observations.
F. What to Expect after the school visit
(Carla suggestion) Participating schools will receive (i.e. heat maps, feedback, showcasing on the moedusail
site, etc… I was thinking one of the added benefits of the site visits was it was also serving as a recognition
system for the schools.
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Questions for Principals
1. (SURVEY) How many Collaborative Work trainings have been delivered to your school personnel?
2. Which instructional practices has your school implemented? Describe your process.
3. Has your school received follow-up coaching from RPDCs related to the Collaborative Work topics?
Describe coaching.
4. If you had to briefly share information about the Collaborative Work to a non-participating colleague,
what would you say?
5. Describe your role in the Collaborative Work. As an administrator, what changes have you made in the
building to facilitate the implementation of the CW?
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Questions for Principals
6. How many Collaborative Data Teams are currently active within your school? Describe your CDTs and
how they function.
7. Tell us about your Common Formative Assessment process across your school.
8. If you were asked to select three words to describe the school culture at your building, what would they
be?
9. What barriers to implementing the Collaborative Work has your building experienced? How have these
been overcome?
10. What do you as next steps within your building for the Collaborative Work?
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Questions for Teacher Focus Group #1
Begin with discussion and completion of Practice Profile for the CDT, CFA, and selected effective teaching
practice learning packages, which have been previously completed individually.
1. (SURVEY) What Collaborative Work trainings delivered by your RPDC have you attended in the last
two years? (check off Learning Package topics)
□ Collaborative Data Teams
□ Common Formative Assessment
□ Assessment Capable Learners
□ Feedback
□ Student-Teacher Relationships
□ Metacognition
□ Using Technology in Classroom Instruction
□ Other __________________________________________
□ Data-Based Decision Making
□ Overview of Effective Teaching/Learning Practices
□ Classroom Discussion
□ Reciprocal Teaching
□ Spaced vs. Massed Practice
□ Direct Instruction
□ School-Based Implementation Coaching
□ Other ________________________________________
a. What types of technology have these trainings utilized? (e.g., videoconferencing, online learning
platforms, document sharing)
2. Describe the coaching that you have received from your RPDC in the last two years.
3. If you had to describe the Collaborative Work to lay person, what would you say?
4. Which instructional practices has your school implemented school-wide?
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Questions for Teacher Focus Group #1
5. How do you utilize those instructional practices during your teaching? (all answer)
a. Do you use technology in conjunction with any of these instructional practices?
b. What do you see the next steps within your classroom for the Collaborative Work?
6. What is your process for developing and using Common Formative Assessments? Please describe an
example of how you developed CFAs and then used CFA data to inform instruction during the past six
months. (all answer)
7. Raise your hand if you participate on one or more Collaborative Data Teams. For those that raised their
hands, how often does your CDT meet? (all raised hands answer)
a. (insert quality of CDT question?)
b. At CDT meetings, what meeting protocols do you use? Does everyone provide input? Describe
typical CDT meeting.
c. What data does your team look at and how often? Describe typical CDT meeting.
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Questions for Teacher Focus Group #1
8. If you had to describe your school culture using only three words, what would you say?
9. Do you think that teachers have a voice in what happens at the school? How does the principal support
your classroom and team work in CW? Tell us about this.
10. What barriers to implementing the Collaborative Work have you personally experienced? How have these
been overcome?
Schedule Template
Date:
District:
School:
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Expected
Length
30 min.
Task
Start
Time
End
Time
Location
Meeting with Principal
One
15 min.
observ. per
Classroom Observations
visitor
(may be
concurrent)
15 min.
School Visit Team Reflection on
Classroom Observations
One
40 min.
sessions
Faculty & Staff Focus Group
15 min.
School Visit Team Reflection on
Focus Groups
15 min.
Debrief Meeting with Principal
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CW Classroom Walkthrough Tool
Demographic Information
Instructor:
Observer:
Time in:
Date:
Time out:
Grade(s):
# students present:
Subject:
Instructional Objectives/Learning Outcomes:
Effective Teaching/Learning Practices Observed
☐ ACL
☐ Student/Teach Relations.
☐ Feedback
☐ Spaced vs. Massed
☐ Reciprocal Teaching
☐ Metacognition
☐ Technology
☐ Direct Instruction
Notes
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