As I have been pointing out in my reflections, I see our weekly readings as building blocks because it is like the new readings rightly fit into the previous one and they keep on clarifying my initial confusion. The readings are getting more focus and delimiting my inquiry question. It is also doing tremendous work in my supervision job this semester. For instance, when I was having the post conference with my interns, the stem and the main branches of the cognitive tree in Costa & Garmston (2002:10) kept popping in my mind. Even before I got to the school, I was pondering over the strategy to use to make my facilitation more effective so that I will not impose on them but reason with them in order to ignite their self-directed learning spirit. From our previous discussions and this week’s readings, I have learned that trust is a big issue in supervision and that it is based on trust that we can form this community of learning and also share genuine problems for collaborative solutions which in turn will be of benefit to both parties (myself and the interns).
I had concern with one of the interns (the one whose behavior changed my inquiry topic) in the school I visited today who never turns in assignments or lesson plans for her observation on time. The team had already decided to let her reschedule her observation for today as she turned in her lesson plan yesterday around 11:00 pm. So as I was going to the school this morning, pondered over what I read in the first two chapters of Costa & Garmston (2002), Garman (1982), as well as Nolan & Hoover (2011) as to how best I can help this student understand the implications of her behavior and the chosen profession and indulge self-directed learning.
In considering the purpose of clinical supervision is (… developing a professionally responsible teacher who is analytical of his own performance, open to help from others, and self-directing) discussed by Garman (ibid), Nolan and Hoover (ibid) discussion on how pre-service teachers can be helped to succeed through the use of powerful effective interaction among the ‘triad’ (university supervisor, cooperating teacher and the pre-service) and ‘tree diagram’ by Costa & Garmston (ibid), I concluded that though I am not going to observe her lesson today, I need to change my conversational strategy. I need to make our interacting welcoming but constructive so that she herself would reflect and realized her actions and the effect it has on the pupils she is teaching currently as well as her cooperating teacher. In a nutshell, the strategy worked out well for me because she turned in the corrected lesson plan this evening instead of tomorrow and her interaction with me showed that she has regretted which on the normal circumstance she would hardly show.
I am personally happy to read this course in the early years of my program (second semester of my PhD) because the benefit will not just end in supervision but will affect my teaching career as a whole. Also, it is going to be my major advocacy program when I return to my home country Ghana because this kind of knowledge we (Aaron and myself) getting from this course is something that is rare in Ghana’s teacher preparation programs. None of the teacher preparation institutions that I know of in Ghana uses a curriculum that reflects in this type of cognitive coaching or supervision tenets.
References
Costa, A. L., & Garmston, R. J. (2002). Cognitive coaching: A foundation for renaissance
Schools, (2nd ed.). Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers.
Fuller, F. F. (1969). Concerns of Teachers: A Developmental Conceptualization. American
Educational Research Association, 6 (2), 207-226.
Garman, N. B. (1982). Clinical approach to supervision. In Supervision of teaching,
Thomas J. Sergiovanni, Ed. Alexandria, Va. : Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development, pp. 35-52.
Nolan, J., & Hoover, L. A. (2010). Teacher supervision and evaluation: Theory into
Practice. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. (3rd edition).