"Teachers Visiting Teachers" School-Wide Community Sharing Project
This project provides instructors with the opportunity to visit each other’s classrooms during the school day. They are encouraged to visit grade levels and subject matters other than their own in an effort to gain greater understanding of and perspective on the total school culture, as well as their own role in the school community. The goals and objectives of the project include: 1) Building trust and camaraderie within the staff, enhancing working relationships; promoting school wide team building through heightened professional respect. 2) Observing students in a variety of settings to gain insight into the total school experience for individual students, expanding teacher knowledge of students’ total affective and academic environment. 3) Gaining vision with respect to thematic integration opportunities; encouraging the sharing and pooling of individual areas of teacher expertise. 4) Obtaining greater understanding of the scope and sequence of our middle school curriculum. Teachers participating voluntarily in this activity coordinate visitations to colleagues’ classrooms by using planning periods to visit, or to cover a classroom for another teacher who is visiting, or by requesting substitute administrative coverage. Compensation for time spent comes in the form of supervision release time, late arrival/early departure opportunities, and the awarding of required professional development hours from the district office for each class visited. The TVT Project promotes discussion of a “caring school community.