Orientations to supervision

1. Orientations to supervision by Chad Smith & Dave Davis

2. Directive Orientation • Directive orientation includes the major behaviors: • Clarifying • Presenting • Demonstrating • Directing • Standardizing • Reinforcing • Final outcome would be an assignment for the teacher to carry out over a specified period of time.

3. Directive Orientation • Scenario: A science teacher is encountering problems with three students in his class on a regular basis. • Its obvious this teacher needs definite, immediate, and concrete help. • A directive supervisor might engage in the steps of clinical supervision.

4. Directive Orientation • The supervisor has made random visit to the classroom. • It was found that the teacher has discipline and management problems. • A preconference meeting is arranged by the supervisor to discuss the issue.

5. Directive Orientation • Preconference: • Supervisor was in charge. • The problem was classified. • Checked it out with the teacher. • Outlined how the class will be observed. • The supervisor listens to the teacher but does not encourage them to talk on. • The meeting was businesslike, serious, and task oriented.

6. Directive Orientation • Observation: • Checklist of five-minute intervals • “Attentive to task” • “Inattentive/Passive” • “Inactive/Active” • At the end of class the teacher is asked to meet with the supervisor.

7. Directive Orientation • Analysis and Interpretation: • After reviewing the completed forms, the supervisor concurs with the teachers previous judgment concerning the three students.

8. Directive Orientation • Post conference: • Teacher reviews filled out instrument with supervisor then begins the post conference. • Supervisor details what the teacher needs to do and what the criteria for improvement will be.

9. Directive Orientation • The supervisor engaged primarily in the behaviors of: • Clarifying & presenting their thinking. • Directing what will happen. • Demonstrating appropriate teaching behaviors. • Standardizing a target level of student progress. • Reinforcing using praise and rewards for carrying out the plan.

10. Directive Orientation • Directive supervision should not be confused with arbitrary, capricious, or totalitarian behavior. • The most effective way to improve instruction is by making standards clear & showing teachers how to attain such standards.

11. Collaborative Orientation • Collaborative orientation to supervision would include the major behaviors: • Listening • Presenting • Problem solving • Negotiating • The goal is getting supervisor & teacher to agree upon a contract that would delineate the structure, process, and criteria for improved instruction.

12. Collaborative Orientation • Scenario: A fourth grade teacher in a self contained classroom is the personification of energy. • Recently the teacher has appeared tired. • Lost temper with students. • Elected to stay in the classroom rather joining other teachers during recess.

13. Collaborative Orientation • The collaborative supervisor might decide to speak with the teacher casually to see if help is needed. • The supervisor decides to meet with the teacher since the activity-centered room portends trouble.

14. Collaborative Orientation • Preconference: • Friendly negotiation. • Supervisor has to gain entry into problem. • If teacher did not want help, supervisor would have to either back off or find access later. • If the teacher still refuses, supervisor might look for a counter proposal. • Try to strike up a deal, where supervisor is involved but on the teachers conditions.

15. Collaborative Orientation • Observation: • Next four days views 20 minutes twice each day at different periods. • Keeps a notebook & moves around the class. • Observes teacher instruction. • students activities. • discussing with students their assignments. • helping individual students who have questions. • The supervisor take notes, upon leaving hurriedly makes observations.

16. Collaborative Orientation • Analysis: • Supervisor rereads observations and develops questions. • Decides the teacher has to much to oversee & coordinate.

17. Collaborative Orientation • Post Conference: • Supervisor will listen to the teachers response to each question. • State what the supervisor thinks should be done to fix the problem. • Find mutual solutions to write in a contract form.

18. Collaborative Orientation • Supervisor and teacher have negotiated the plan for action. • Neither of the two has a final plan that excludes the others view. • The supervisor & teacher have: • Reviewed • Revised • Rejected • Proposed • Counter proposed • until agreement was reached.

19. Collaborative Orientation • Collaborative Orientation presupposes that a supervisor’s or teacher’s individual ideas about instructional improvement are not as effective as mutual ones. • Final product is a contract, agreed by both and carried out by joint responsibility. • (The Major Behaviors)

20. The Nondirective Orientation Defines as… • Teachers that are capable of analyzing and solving their on instructional problems • In other words the teacher sees the need for change and takes responsibility for it

21. The Nondirective Orientation What is the role of the supervisor? • Acts as a facilitator for the teacher by imposing little formal structure or direction. • Uses behaviors of listening, clarifying, encouraging, and presenting to channel the teacher towards self-discovery.

22. The Nondirective Orientation A Nondirective supervisor most likely will not use such a standard format as the five steps of clinical supervision when working with a teacher. Instead the supervisor depends on the teacher’s needs, the supervisor might simply observe the teachers without analyzing and interpreting, listen without making observations, or arrange in-service and provide requested materials and resources.

23. The Nondirective OrientationExample The problem… Mr. Klunger has been teaching an English class and realizes that the kids that gave oral reports on Shakespeare were uninspiring. He wonders on how to create some enthusiasm.

24. The Nondirective Orientation Preconference… • Ms. Garcia (the supervisor) stops by and talks to Mr. Klunger. • He tells her his situation and she listens and asked questions of what he could do. • He said he was going to have a talk with the class about the problem and asked her to join.

25. The Nondirective Orientation Observation… • Ms. Garcia went to class and just sat in the back and observed without taking any notes..

26. The Nondirective Orientation Analysis and Interpretation… • Ms. Garcia thought he was wrong how he handled the class. • He should have gave the students more time give feedback. • She will not give him her observations unless he asks. • When asked she will just tell him without any judgments.

27. The Nondirective Orientation Postconference… • Ms. Garcia listens to Mr. Klunger give his thoughts with her asking encouraging questions. • He then asked her what she thought • By the end he changed his approach to class in order to get the class motivated.

28. The Nondirective Orientation Summary • We see the supervisor engage in • Listening - nodding his/her head and restating emotions • Encouraging - letting the teacher analyze the problem further by asking questions as “Explain further” • Clarifying – which is clarifying the teacher problem by asking questions like “You mean the students are bored with the topic?” • Presenting – If the teacher asks for suggestions then the supervisor will off alternatives. • Problem Solving – It is letting the teacher decide on a plan by asking what are they going to do and then offers assistance with problem if needed.

29. Any Questions?

30. An Artistic Approach to Supervision By Chad Smith & David Davis

31. An Artistic Approach to Supervision In this chapter… • It discusses whether teaching and supervision is an art or a science.

32. An Artistic Approach to Supervision Elliot expresses he does not like the term supervision • The first place is a supervisor is supposed to have a super vision. • Second place is that the term supervisor is most often used within an industrial context. • He would rather use consultant instead of supervisor

33. “Scientific” Supervision Problems • 1st – Fallacy of Additivity • 2nd – Fallacy of Composition • 3rd – Fallacy of Concreteness • 4th – Fallacy of the Act • 5th – Fallacy of Method

34. Artistic Approach There are two basic ways • Through definition • Observing what those who engage in artistic modes of supervision do

35. What is the analogy to teaching? • Teachers are differentiated by their style and by their particular strengths • If you have an artistically oriented supervisor he/she would recognize this style and try to help the teacher exploit it by strengthening the positive directions already taken.

36. The characteristics of an artistic approach to supervision? • Artistic approaches to supervision require attention to the muted or expressive character of events, not simply to their incidence or literal meaning. • Artistic approaches to supervision require high levels of educational connoisseurship, the ability to see what is significant yet subtle. • Artistic approaches to supervision appreciate the unique contributions of the teacher to the educational development of the young, as well as those contributions a teacher may have in common with others.

37. Characteristics cont. • Artistic approaches to supervision demand that attention be paid to the process of classroom life and that this process be observed over extended periods of time so that the significance of events can be placed in a temporal context. • Artistic approaches to supervision require that rapport be established between supervisor and those supervised so that dialog and a sense of trust can be established between the two. • Artistic approaches to supervision require an ability to use language in a way that exploits its potential to make public the expressive character of what has been seen.

38. Characteristics cont. • Artistic approaches to supervision require the ability to interpret the meaning of the events occurring to those who experience them and to be able to appreciate their educational import. • Artistic approaches to supervision accept the fact that the individual supervisor with his or her strengths, sensitivities, and experience is the major “instrument” through which the educational situation is perceived and its meaning construed.

39. Any Questions?