This course will use a modified version of a CAC developed by Steve Seidel and Harvard Project Zero colleagues.
Here is a quote from the webpage ROUNDS at Project Zero that describes the protocol: " Developed almost ten years ago, the CAC is a conversation protocol that has been used extensively to closely examine student work. It has been researched, documented, adapted, and used in schools and by school-reform groups across the country."
The protocol was introduced to me by Dr. Fiona McDonnell who is now at Emmanuel College in Boston. She gained her doctorate at Harvard, was familiar with those who developed the protocol, and has a wide range of experience using the protocol. We didn't change the original protocol very much, but we did use a couple of versions, including one for looking at videotape of real elementary and middle school classrooms.
For this class I have kept true to the original version, but have changed some of the language to reflect the fact that we are looking at work that is done in our classroom rather than work that children do in an elementary school classroom. I have also retained some specific questions about looking for inquiry and looking for student thinking that we had incorporated into previous versions.
You can access our version using the menu or by using this link.