Chapter 6: Models of Supervision PDF

LTPD – Assignment: Poster Ch. 6 – Models of Supervision A. Directive Supervision Supervisor’s role is to direct and inform the teacher, model teaching behaviors, and evaluate the teacher’s mastery of defined behaviors. Problems: 1. how the sup defines “good” teaching method 2. this may give...

LTPD – Assignment: Poster Ch. 6 – Models of Supervision A. Directive Supervision Supervisor’s role is to direct and inform the teacher, model teaching behaviors, and evaluate the teacher’s mastery of defined behaviors. Problems: 1. how the sup defines “good” teaching method 2. this may give rise to feelings of defensiveness and low self-esteem on the teacher. 3. responsibility for what goes on in the classroom. Explanation for each problem: 1. People have diKerent definitions/perceptions on what “good” teaching is; mostly agree that good teaching means that learning takes place. But how do we identify what specific teaching behaviors cause the students to learn? The search for eKective teaching goes on. It is diKicult to justify prescribing what teachers should do in the classroom. 2. This approach can make teachers see themselves as inferior to the supervisor, which can lower their self-esteem. It can also be threatening – “Oh, supervisor, don’t come today. Please don’t come today.” Rardin describes that “threat can produce a “half-in-half-out” engagement (1977;184). Threat can cause teachers to become defensive toward supervisor’s judgments. If we feel that we are being judged, we lose the “right to be wrong”. We can also lose the courage to try new ideas, to explore more than one alternative, and to explore freely. 3. This prescriptive approach may force teachers to comply with what supervisor thinks they should do. This keeps the responsibility for decision making with the teacher educator instead of shifting it to the teacher. B. Alternative Supervision (Freeman – 1982) Supervisor’s role is to suggest a variety of alternatives to what the teacher has done in the classroom. Having a limited number of choices can reduce teacher’s anxiety over deciding what to do next, and yet it still gives them the responsibility to for decision making. This approach works best when the sup does not favor any one alternative and is not judgmental. The purpose of oKering alternatives is to widen the scope of what a teacher will consider doing. Fanselow (1987b) suggested that teacher supervision includes more than just the generation of alternative teaching behaviors, he oKered suggestions about how alternatives can be used to guide the beginning teacher. One way is to have teachers try the opposite of what they usually do. The aim is for teachers to try alternative behaviors and to pay attention to the consequences. If teachers are provided with strategies that give them a way to understand the consequences of what they do, teachers can gradually rely on themselves to make teaching decisions. C. Collaborative Supervision (Cogan – 1973) The supervisor’s role is to work with teachers but not direct them. The sup actively participates with the teacher in any decisions that are made and attempts to establish a sharing relationship. Cogan (1973) advocates this model, which he calls “clinical supervision”. He believes that teaching is mostly a problem-solving process that requires a sharing of ideas between the teacher and the supervisor. They work together in addressing a problem in the teacher’s classroom teaching. They pose a hypothesis, experiment, and implement strategies that appear to oKer a reasonable solution to the problem under consideration. This also depends on the context where the teaching takes place. In some places, especially in the eastern world, if a supervisor attempted to get teachers to share ideas with them, the teachers would think that they are not a very good supervisor. D. Nondirective Supervision (Curran – 1978, who bases his idea on the work of Carl Rogers, 1961) The role of the sup is to support, yet not direct, in the process. Supervisors listen and demonstrate an understanding of what the teacher has said. The sup does not repeat word-for-word what the teachers has said but rather restates how he or she has understood the teacher’s comments. In this approach, the teacher could have the freedom to express and clarify their ideas, and a feeling of support and trust could be grown between the sup and the teacher. The teacher also had the chance to raise questions themselves as a teacher and about the consequences that their teaching has on the students. They could also gain experience in making decisions on their own, and they could realize their own responsibility for their teaching behavior. The critical element lies in the relationship of the student teacher and the educator, which must: 1. Allow the student teacher to sort through the practice teaching experience without interference or direction from the educator, to find individual solutions; 2. Allow the educator to participate in this process and to contribute from knowledge and experience without directing the student teacher to specific conclusions or courses of action. The purpose is to provide the student teacher with a forum to clarify perceptions of what he or she is doing in teaching and for the educator to fully understand, although not necessarily to accept or agree with those perceptions. It also allows the student teacher to identify a course of action based on his or her own perceptions and what the educator oKers, and to decide whether and how to act. The balance is between “understanding” (with the educator recognizing the student teacher’s ‘world’) and “standing” (with the educator “standing” in relation to what he or she has understood) – (Curran, 1976, 1978). Stevick (1980) describes this process of “understanding” as “holding back from asking questions, telling about one’s own experience, and from making suggestions. The understander does so because of “faith in the other person’s ability to come up witj what he needs. It can also have a diKerent result. It makes them feel anxious and alienated. This may be due to the inexperience of the teacher who may think, “But what do you think I should do in the classroom? How can I know what to do if I have no experience doing it?” Other than that, it can also from the way the supervisor understands nondirective supervision. It could be because the sup has been using the surface techniques while ignoring the deeper philosophical principles – where we need to understand the importance of working with the “whole person” of the learner. Curran advocated such techniques as the nonjudgmental “understanding response” to break down the defenses of learners, to facilitate a feeling of security, and to build a trusting relationship between learners and the teacher. This trusting relationship allows them to “quest” together to find answers to each learner’s questions. E. Creative Supervision The basis of creative supervision is “any particular way of looking at things is only one from among many other possible ways.” The creative model encourages freedom and creativity; it can allow for: 1) a combination of models or a combination of supervisory behaviors from diKerent models, 2) a shifting of supervisory responsibilities from supervisor to other sources, and 3) an application of insights from other fields that are not found in any of the models. #1) Working with only one model can be appropriate, but also limiting. Sometimes a combination of diKerent models or a combination of supervisory behaviors from diKerent models might be needed. For example: 1. If new teachers are trying to find out “what” to teach, he uses a directive approach 2. If they want to know “how” to teach, he uses an alternatives approach. #2) – to shift supervisory responsibility from the supervisor to another source. For instance, teachers can be responsible for their own supervision through the use of teacher centers (Zigarmi 1979). Teacher centers are places where teachers can go to find answers to questions, use resources, and talk about problems with other teachers or special “consultants” or “supervisory experts.” Another way to shift responsibility away from the supervisor is to have peer supervision. #3) For example, some teacher educators have adapted observation systems originally developed for research to help them observe and supervise practice teachers. The application of observation systems has been a valuable asset to supervisors as it allows them to describe rather than prescribe teaching, and it provides a means through which teachers can continue to monitor and study their own teaching. F. Self-help—explorative supervision This is an extension of creative supervision which emerged as the result of the creative eKorts of Fanselow who proposes a diKerent way to perceive the process that teachers go through in their development, one that provides opportunities for both teachers and supervisors to gain awareness of their teaching through observation and exploration. The visiting teacher is not seen as a “helper” (which is the basis for other models of supervision) but as another, perhaps more experienced, teacher who is interested in learning more about his or her own teaching and instills in teachers the desire to do the same. The AIM is for both the visiting teacher and teacher to explore teaching through observation of their own and others’ teaching in order to gain awareness of teaching behaviors and their consequences, as well as to generate alternative ways to teach. The goal to “see teaching diKerently” is achieved not because the supervisor has helped the teacher to do so, but because the teacher has discovered a way to view his or her own teaching diKerently through self-exploration. The aim is likewise for teachers, including the visiting teacher, to construct and reconstruct teaching based on awareness gained from observations of teaching. (p. 163). As a part of the awareness-generating process, teachers visit each other’s classes or gather to observe a fellow teacher’s class in progress. During these observations teachers take notes in order to capture what is going on. Teachers also audiotape their own teaching or have their teaching videotaped. These tapes are later used as a way for teachers to study their teaching alone or with other teachers. Teachers practice describing the teaching they see rather than judging it. Language that conveys the notions of “good, bad, better, best,”, or “worse” is discouraged because judgements impede clear understanding. Part of the process of exploration is to classify or group aspects of teaching that are observed. Ch. 11 – Clinical Supervision of Language Teaching: The Supervisor as Trainer and Educator Definition of “Clinical Supervision”: the process by which teaching performance is systematically observed, analyzed, and evaluated. In this case: 1. We will be concerned only with its use in monitoring, guiding, and improving the performance of practicing teachers 2. Examines the component of teacher development from the perspective of the supervisor. 3. The interest is in the roles of supervisors must play in setting where other forms of teacher development are limited or unavailable, and where directives and advice on language teaching come most usually from a highly centralized authority. The coverage (scope): 1. Examine the clinical supervision process in very general terms. The emphasis is a key distinction in the roles language teaching supervisor must play: the roles of “trainer” and “educator”. As trainers, supervisors are concerned with technical improvement – that is, in showing teachers that what they are doing can be done better. As educators, supervisors must be concerned with strategic change: that is, showing teachers that what is done in the classroom might be done diKerently and in sensitizing teachers to alternative classroom practices. 2. The distinction is then further explored in two case studies, which in turn suggest the need for and propose a systematic means of preparing supervisors for these dual roles. Defining Clinical Supervision 1. What is Clinical Supervision? An ongoing process of teacher development that is based on direct observation of classroom teaching performance. It is a cyclical process consisting of three stages: a pre-observation consultation between the teacher and supervisor, in which the general and specific goals of a classroom visit are established and in which the teacher and supervisor discuss the context in which the observation will take place – in other words, the general conduct and problems in the course as a whole; the observation itself; and a post-observation analysis and discussion, in which strengths and weaknesses are examined and proposals are made to improve subsequent classroom performance. 2. What is the relationship between supervision and other components of in-service development? A number of forms of in-service development and support; e.g. seminars, workshops, summer programs, professional meetings, and journals. These formats for professional development have the advantage of reaching relatively large numbers of teachers eKiciently and economically.