What do you believe should be the purpose of supervision?

Sometimes the best way to define something is by explaining what it is not. Therefore, I feel that the purpose of supervision is not to catch a teacher off guard (a gotcha moment). It is not to tell the teacher everything they are doing wrong with no solution to the problems. I believe that the purpose of supervision is to enhance the professionalism of teachers. Supervisors should provide feedback on delivery methods, questioning methods, testing procedures, etc. all of which directly affect the students learning process. For example, poor delivery of information would be a full class lecture. Questioning methods should contain both lower and higher level questioning derived from Blooms Taxonomy. Also, by examining testing procedures, this will ensure the specific topic aimed to be measured is correctly and fairly being measured. All-in-all the purpose of the supervisor is to be the chief, coach, or just the goto-person to enhance ones teaching. What do you believe about teachers and their ability to direct their own improvement? A supervisor is only as good as their teachers. A supervisor can provide suggestions to teachers on improving their instruction, but it then it is up to the teachers to utilize the advice and implement these suggestions. Technology I believe was a futuristic object that we now have at our fingertips, but do not take enough advantage of. I feel most teachers do not take it upon themselves to keep up on the latest technology which would certainly enhance the learning of the current generation of students. The current generation of students has been introduced to technology their entire life, whereas some teachers still lack basic computer skills. There is a very large disconnect here. What this tells me is teachers lack in trying to improve their way of teaching. Professional development is never take seriously and just a day off from teaching; the NJ teachers convention is a 4-day vacation in

Atlantic City. Teachers need to start to take it upon themselves by enhancing the way the run classrooms, mastering delivery of information, and fairly and accurately creating assessments; the ideal way to do this is to enhance their learning. What should be the focus of educational planning and delivery of services? Educational planning should be a collaborative process between teachers. There is no need for teachers teaching the same subject area to have multiple versions of the same topic. Now, each teacher will certainly deliver the lesson with their teaching style, but the line of questioning, material, and assessment should correlate throughout. To take it a step further, teachers should communicate across curriculum. Personally, math and science should be grouped, and history and English should be grouped. From a supervisors perspective, the only way to achieve this is through scheduling. It would be ideal for teachers to have the same common planning time. However, being realistic, collaboration is not always completed during this time. Therefore another way to enable a collaborative effort in planning is to use technology; possibly creating a share drive. This is a network folder all teachers would have access to and can store files for other to see and use. Online blogs and video chats is also a great way for teachers to communicate with each other. Educational planning can also go much further than this. To achieve the ideal collegial school this administrative staff must be very careful in the hiring process. Hiring teachers with the proper certifications, attending a reputable school, and having experience is a must. How does my Educational Philosophy relate to Supervision? Based on Glickmans explanations of the three superphilosophies, my philosophy falls more toward existentialism, however it still obtains some traits of essentialism and experientialism. Glickman defines these philosophies under three categories; View or Reality,

How to Learn about Reality, and Applications to Supervision. The chart below provides the definition of these philosophies Essentialism View of Reality Exists outside of humans, absolute, unchanging Experimentalism Existentialism Reality is what works; it is tentative, constantly changing How to Learn about Reality Train the mind to think rationally Interact with environment; experiment Application to Supervision Supervisor is expert; mechanistically transmits instructional knowledge to teacher. Supervisor works democratically with teachers to test old hypotheses and try new ones (Glickman, p.84) In direct relation to supervision, based on these philosophies, my supervisory belief falls between collaborative and directive. Collaborative supervision is based on the belief that teaching is a problem solving activity. The supervisors role is to guide the problem solving process. Directive supervision is an approach based on the belief that teaching consists of technical skills with known standards and competencies for all teachers to be effective Engage in selfdiscovery; create meaning Supervisor facilitates teacher exploration and autonomous decision making. Individual is source of all reality; individual defines reality

(Glickman p.85). As much as I would like to only be portrayed as a collaborative supervisor, there are times I would still have to be the boss.