Prepared by Janeece Docal as part of the Fulbright-Hays
Seminars to New Zealand 2003.
Janeece Docal is a teacher
at Bell Multicultural Senior High School in Washington, DC
Unit level: Faculty and Staff
Executive summary
This project is to be used with the Fulbright-Hays Seminars Abroad
NZ focus group participants or other school faculty and staff when visiting
a host school. It gives protocol suggestions for norms, walk-throughs,
observations, feedback to host school, and post-visit reflection questions
that focus on successes observed and lead to a greater discussion of
the implications of what was observed for development of Fulbright-Hays
curricular projects. This curriculum project provides a protocol, a
means for visitors to a school to have a meaningful interchange with
hosting educators about their observations of the school. It helps people
observe carefully in a non-evaluative way. These visits and focus group
meetings are not for criticizing or looking at a school with the lens
of what one thinks should be there, but rather for celebrating success
and becoming a learner. This protocol can help hosting educators harvest
learning from their visitors and deepen the learning of the visitors
themselves. Prerequisite for this protocol is a high level of respect.
This respect is demonstrated by language that recognizes the debriefing
is not about evaluation, that each will be thoughtful, will listen and
respond, and that whatever knowledge is created will be shared knowledge.
More broadly, this protocol can also be used with students, with peer
observations, and facilitating meetings with other educators.
docalj.pdf (433kB)
