Week 4 Reflection
When reading Sergiovanni and Starratt’s Perspectives for Supervision, I was struck by the connection between their writings on metacognitive learning, the increased expectations for student performance, and my current experiences. They authors write, “Not only is there pressure on teachers to ensure that all children reach acceptable levels of achievement, but achievement levels themselves are being raised. This calls for higher level of reasoning previously thought by many to be beyond the cognitive developmental levels of younger students.” (A Framework for Supervision, 2009) Just today I had several conversations with collaborating teachers on this topic, unsolicited. While checking in on an intern, her CT was teaching math. She looked up at me and said, “Yes, these kindergartners are learning algebra”, and she rolled her eyes. She appeared exasperated with the level of content she was being asked to teach in the new math standards. A second teacher commented to me during a separate visit, that the new standards are asking too much of her students, and they are far above what even her highest performers can master. This appears to be the consensus among classroom teachers in regards to the new Florida standards, that the raised expectations are too high and unattainable. On a personal note, however, I agree with the push towards having students explain their thinking and reasoning rather than just recall facts. This ideally creates real world problem solvers rather than robotic regurgitators. I also agree that teachers need to create a learning environment based on the needs of each individual student, and not setting out a one size fits all design. “The notion that there is one teaching strategy that works for all children, if it was ever genuinely embraced, can no longer be defended.” (Sergiovanni and Starratt, 2009) In the same article, I found it interesting that supervision is described as being done to and for teachers rather than with teachers. This sums up the learning that has taken place in my mind over the past few weeks. I am coming around to this way of thinking, that a supervisor is most effective when they let the teacher being supervised do the “heavy lifting” of increasing their own effectiveness, with the supervisor facilitating this process. This is much like a classroom teacher does for her students, when they learn through inquiry. I always used to tell my students (6th grade) that I would know I had done a good job when they could run the class without me. For learning to be a “public good”, teachers have to collaborate and share their individual skills and wisdom with others at their site. Considering that teachers are scored individually and only those teachers in the top percentile receive the bonus pay, not all teachers are going to be willing to take the high road and work to create a higher performing school for this public good. Some will remain committed to the private good, and the privately good paycheck. It would be nice to think all teachers would be on board for collaboration and supervision, but in my experience, this is not reality under the current supervisory system, referred to as theory X (Sergiovanni and Starratt, 2009). Creating that “strong value that permeates the culture of the school” will be critical to solve this problem. Having teachers serve in a supervisory role for others can create the buy in necessary for success. Simply creating the norms will not be enough. We need to focus on theory Y concepts, as described by Douglas McGregor. This makes me think that, according to Nolan and Hoover (2011), my challenge will be to develop the idea of shared ownership with the teacher and a trust in their expertise. At least in National Board certification, accomplished teachers are rewarded for sharing their expertise with others. In the current evaluation system, there is nothing in place such as this. Perhaps there should be? This is an interesting idea. What if teachers who scored well on their evaluations consistently over time were paired with lower performing teachers, with one acting in a supervisory role and the other engaging in self-study for the purpose of increasing their skills. This would solve both problems. The lower rated teacher would benefit from the accomplished teacher, and the accomplished teacher would benefit from assisting the lower performing teacher, and the big winners would be the students in both groups! This approach aligns with at least one of the ideas by Newman’s work on pathways to learning and academic success, “encouraging teachers to work in more cooperative and collegial ways”. (Cited in Sergiovanni and Starratt, 2009) Their article summarizes, and I agree, “the heart of supervisory leadership is designing opportunities for teachers to continuously expand their capacity to learn, to care, to help each other and teach more effectively.” This new collaboration set up would address what Sergiovanni and Starratt refer to as an evaluation system that is “competitive and thus disruptive to group harmony” (pg. 13). The normative approach, supervisor D, would be an interesting experiment, to see if “most” of the teachers bought in, or if this could work for any and all instructors at a given site. In my previous job, many of the employees were fiercely loyal to the original supervisor. After reading Chapter 2 from Sergiovanni and Starratt, I think she originally got our buy in from a personal source of authority. She was charming, motivating, and appreciative. This created a loyal following, which then lead to moral following. We liked her, she liked the ideas behind our evaluation plan, thus we liked the evaluation plan. Those of us who shared her ideals and morals regarding the reason behind this system were able to find a common purpose, which increased and solidified our commitment to her and to the system. Unfortunately, looking back from a new perspective, I fear the strategy we used as evaluators was one of bureaucracy, and thus was not as effective as originally thought. Although there was a level of professional expectation on our part from the teachers, it was seldom manifested. Reading this article provides some insight as to why. Teaching Supervision and Evaluation (Nolan and Hoover, 2011) points out another reason this is true. They focus on a growth model of supervision, which is not the case for the EET evaluation model. The two are not combined. Although evaluators are encouraged to “develop genuine and supportive relationships with teachers”, they cannot use the evaluation as a growth model. All teachers are held to the same standard, without consideration of where they start in their skill base, and what their current strengths and weaknesses are. This solidifies in my mind one of the many differences between evaluation and supervision. “When schools fail to separate supervision from evaluation, neither function is performed very well…teacher’s respond to observation as Blumberg describes – with mistrust and apprehension.” (Nolan and Hoover, 2011). I’m left with many wonderings. How can the current evaluation system in our district be improved? Which of these four approaches described in the article would be most effective with such a large group of teachers? Would all teachers rise to the occasion if provided with the more teacher-centered approach, relying on their moral compass and dedication to a positive “school wide IQ”? How could I, as a supervisor and an evaluator (separate but equally important roles) facilitate my conferences and observations to be most effective for my interns and teachers, taking this new information into account? I plan to focus on my role in this process, specifically my role as a supervisor in pre and post conferences for formal observations for pre-service teachers. I can collect evidence of the approach I use for these conferences, the comfort level of the PST measured through their self-assessment data, and the effectiveness of the conference based on data collected showing if the teacher implemented strategies for improving their effectiveness as a classroom teacher. I may focus on a few student teachers, to make the data collection manageable, and then I can add information regarding their performance between the first observation and the second. This will need to be refined, but it’s a starting point. References: Nolan, J., & Hoover, L.A. (2010). Teacher supervision and evaluation: Theory into practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. (3rd edition) Sergiovanni, T. J., Starratt, R. J. (2007). Supervision: A redefinition, (8th Ed.), (xv-53). Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
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