CHAPTER 3

SUPERVISON OF INSTRUCTION
• The discussion focuses only on aspects of the supervision program designed to improve
classroom instruction which, in effect, limits the concern to professional growth and teaching
performance.
• Supervision’s purpose is to improve instruction in order to enhance student learning (a leadership
function accompanied that is accomplished in response to academic goals and professional
growth needs of those involved.
 INSTRUCTIONAL LEADER

• Continuously looks for ways to assist teachers in doing classroom tasks better.
• Provides intervention measures to improve the teaching-learning experiences in the classroom
whenever and wherever necessary.
 INSTRUCTIONAL LEADERSHIP

• Became a dominant model in 1980s as research findings indicated that effective schools usually
have principals who focused more on instruction
• Become more comprehensive to include not only such tasks as setting clear goals, allocating
resources to instruction, managing curriculum, monitoring lesson plans, and evaluating teachers,
but also the emphasis on learning.
National Association of Elementary School Principals (Lashway, 2002) considers instructional leadership in
terms of leading learning communities with this roles:
1. Prioritizing student and adult learning.
2. Setting high expectations for performance.
3. Gearing content and instruction to standards.
4. Creating a culture of continuous learning for adults.
5. Using multiple resources of data to assess learning.
6. Activating the community’s support for school success.
 Bottoms and O’Neil (2001) Elmore (in Lashway 2002)
• Considers “principal as Chief learning • Regards instructional leadership as the
Officer.” “organizational glue that keep things on
track.”
 Blasé and Blasé (1998)
2 Major supervisory behavior
that positively influence student
learning:
Sallman and Glanz
Intervention approaches that may be included in the supervision program:
Clinical supervision

1. Talking with teachers Mentoring

Coaching
2. Promoting professional
Peer assessment
development
Portfolio assessment
Action research
*These are approaches that establish “helping relationship” (Cogan 1973)
 Reflective talk requires complex skills and
Conference processes:
1. Classroom observation and data-gathering method.
• Heart of instructional 2. Teaching methods, skills, and repertoires.
supervision (Blasé and Blasé 3. Understanding the relationship between teaching and learning.
2000)
4. Data analysis.
• Good instructional leaders,
5. Knowing how to make the conference reflective and non-threatening
understand and make wise use
of instructional conference as 6. Communication skills (e.g. acknowledging, paraphrasing, summarizing,
an opportunity for reflective clarifying, and elaborating on information).

talk with the teachers. 7. Awareness of the stage of development, career state, levels of abstraction
and commitment, learning style, concerns about innovation, and
background of the teacher.
 CLINICAL SUPERVISION

• Emerged as one of the most important and powerful intervention measures since 1960s.
• Cogan viewed clinical supervision as vehicle for developing professional, responsible teachers
who are capable of analyzing their own performance, who were open to change and assistance
from others, and who were above all self-directing, according to Pajak (1993, p. 76).
• Classroom behavior of the teacher, not the teacher as a person is the proper domain of clinical
supervision, insisted by Cogan.
• To focus is to understand what happens in class, rather than to attempt to change the personality
of the teacher.
 NECESSARY THINGS THAT TEACHER OBSERVES
TO BRING ABOUT DESIRED CHANGE IN
CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR:

1. the behavior to be changed;

2. the desired change; and
3. the professional satisfaction that will be derived
from doing so.
 TEACHER
• Initially seeks help from a trained supervisor
SUCCESS OF THE PROCESS
• relies on the working relationship between
the clinical supervisor and the teacher,
characterized by sharing of responsibility and
the collaboration
 COGAN CAUTIONS AGAINST CERTAIN WORKING
RELATIONSHIPS THAT ARE COUNTER-
PRODUCTIVE
SUPERIOR-
SUBORDINATE TEACHER-STUDENT COUNSELOR-CLIENT
-implies dependency and lack -encourages docility, -focuses on therapy to address
of professional accountability obedience, and compliance personality problems
• These different types of supervisor-teacher working relationships may constrain rather than
promote a healthy working environment conducive to clinical supervision.
• In general, it promotes dependence- rather than independence- which is contrary to one of the
primary objectives of the clinical supervision cycle
 GOLDHAMMER, ANDERSON, AND KRAJEWSKI (1993,P.52-53)
OUTLINE OF CHARACTERISTICS, ASSUMPTIONS AND
REQUIREMENTS OF CLINICAL SUPERVISION

1. It is a technology for improving instruction.

2. It is a deliberate intervention in the instructional process.
3. It is goal-oriented, combining the needs of the school with personal growth needs of those who
work within the school.
4. It assumes a professional working relationship between teacher(s) and supervisor(s).
5. It requires a high degree of mutual trust as reflected in understanding, support, and
commitment to growth.
6. It is systematic, although it requires flexible and continuously changing methodology.
7. It creates a productive (i.e healthy) tension for bridging the gap between the real and the ideal.
8. Assumes that the supervisor knows a great deal about the analysis of instruction and learning,
and productive human interaction.
9. It requires both pre-service training (for supervision), especially in observation techniques, and
continuous in-service reflection on effective approaches.
Clinical Supervision differs from traditional supervision in
terms of philosophy, objective, process, and focus.
 Table 5
Difference Between Clinical Supervision and Traditional Supervision

Values Clinical Supervision Traditional Supervision

Aim To help improve Evaluation instruction
instruction
Basis Classroom data Observer’s rating
Focus Limited specific concerns Broad general concerns
Frequency Based on need Based on policy
Philosophy Promotes independence Promotes dependence
Process Cyclical Linear
Responsibility Shared between teacher Supervisor’s responsibility
and supervisor
 CLINICAL SUPERVISION CYCLE

• This approach was first published by Goldhammer (1969) and Cogan (1973)
• They borrowed the term “clinical supervision’ from the medical profession.
• Effective supervisors had been using similar methods for some time before these publications.
• In theory and practice, it is a continuous series of cycles in which the supervisor assists the
teacher in developing better and more successful instructional strategies.
 Thank you!

Debbie Dawn P. Pajares

Reporter from Group 3