Educational Supervisory Model. Education Research Paper

Developmental Model
Developmental models of supervision are appealing largely because they are useful to supervisors and supervisees of diverse theoretical persuasions, have implications for direct practice and training and offer a framework for monitoring progress overtime (Watkins, 1995). The developmental model outlines the progressive stages that the teachers must take as they acquire the necessary skills of becoming experts in their fields. Each stage consists of characteristics that the teachers must exhibit or meet before they move to the next stage. For example, those teachers beginning their internship are expected to show limited skills as well as confidence while those who are finishing their field placements will show more skills and be confident. The expert teacher will exhibit good problem-solving skills and be reflective on what he/she has acquired during the field training period.
There are various developmental models that have been developed by different scholars to help both teachers and field supervisors. I decided on the development model since teachers already have to go through several years of schooling and in some cases several weeks of supervised student teaching. Mrs. Westerhausen is not a beginner teacher that needs a lot of support. She is confident in her objectives of the assignments and her mode of teaching. She has built relationships with her 53 students over the years as they move up in grade levels. Mrs. Westerhausen can use dialog and constructive feedback on refinement areas to help strengthen her lessons and delivery.
Integrated Development Model (IDM)
It describes three levels of teacher development:
Level 1. Interns are entry-level teachers who are highly motivated but fearful of being evaluated.
Level 2. Are teachers at the middle-level and have gained some experience and motivation and their confidence has shown a decline.
Level 3. Are teachers who have gained enough skills and are stably motivated (Benard& Goodyear, 2009).
The supervisor should focus on strategies that correspond to the skills of the teacher.
Coaching and mentoring instrument
The selected evaluation approach is peer observation. Other teachers are a good source of data that will be used to evaluate the teaching and units of an individual teacher since they will provide professional feedback as well as guidance. The coaching and mentoring instrument comprises the following guidelines:
1 The teacher will be offered guidance and support regarding teaching
2 The teacher will be encouraged to seek assistance regarding the teaching of her units in order to make teaching and learning more productive and successful and enhance student performance.
3 The teacher will be encouraged and supported to achieve the learning outcomes established by the school and state regarding the unit that she/he teaches (Portner, 2010).
Issues of developmental supervision/leadership
One of the issues of developmental supervision is to determine the best approach that the supervisor could employ as the most appropriate for that particular instructor. The effective way of approaching this issue is that the supervisor can utilize each situation in determining the method most appropriate with that specific teacher (Glickman, Gordon & Ross-Gordon, 2009). In essence, there are four supervisory approaches: directive control; directive informational; collaborative; and nondirective. Basically, the best way that the supervisor can use to determine whether to utilize any of the aforesaid approaches is simply to combine observation of the educator with discussions. If the educator appears to work well with fellow educators and he/she has excellent ideas and classroom strategies, although might be reluctant to initiate ideas on his/her own, then collaborative method may be the most fitted (Wolfgang & Glickman, 2009). If the educator has difficulties with classroom management, is predisposed to depend upon the same strategies repeatedly with little regards to his/her success, and keeps on demonstrating inconsistent performance within the classroom, then directive informational method may be the most beneficial. If the educator has solid classroom management, detailed and properly carried out plans, is always prepared, applies various methods of teaching with little guidance and has good ideas and excellent relationships with students, then non-directive approach is the solution (Wolfgang & Glickman, 2009).
The second issue in developmental supervision is the supervisor – who may be the school principal – lacking the know-how and expertise to effectively use and apply the right method of supervision. This issue can be effectively addressed by ensuring that the supervisors themselves are conversant with all the approaches to supervision so that they properly use them. The third issue is knowing whether or not the development supervision approach used is working. A number of supervisory behaviors are used in developmental supervision. As time goes on, the supervisor should assess the method be used to determine if it is actually working as it should, and if it is effective (Tres...