10 Important Ideas About Supervision Put Forward by Members of the Supervision and Instructional Leadership SIG

• In Event: 25.064 - Thinking About the Field: Supervision Scholars Think About Its Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Objective

This paper reviews 10 seminal ideas about supervision put forward in the literature on instructional supervision by scholars who have been members of the Supervision and Instructional Leadership SIG, which began in 1982.

Perspectives

For the purpose of this paper, the field of instructional supervision is defined as assistance for the enhancement of teaching and learning. “Ideas” in supervision are broadly defined to include proposed supervision philosophies, concepts, functions, approaches, activities and issues. The ideas reviewed reflect a wide range of theoretical perspectives and epistemologies. Any exploration of “important ideas” in a field of study by its nature includes a level of subjectivity, and such was the case in this project. The paper will include a rationale for the inclusion of each of the 10 ideas, including a discussion of the scholarly impact of the idea.

Methods

The literature on supervision was reviewed to determine ideas that have had a strong impact on the field, as determined by discussion of and references to those ideas in scholarly publications, as well as informal discussions of the same ideas at meetings of supervision scholars, including the AERA Supervision and Instructional Leadership SIG and the Council of Professors of Instructional Supervision (COPIS). Past and present members of the SIG were eligible for consideration. An idea presented by multiple scholars was considered if at least one of the scholars was a past or present member of the SIG.

Sources

Sources included journal articles, monographs, edited books, and texts on instructional supervision published since 1982. The number of publications by the author on a concept under consideration, the prestige and circulation of those publications, and the extent to which other scholars have reviewed or built upon the idea in question were considered in the selection of the ideas included in the paper.

Results

The 10 important ideas selected (in alphabetical order by author) are:

1 Art Costa and Robert Garmston’s (2016) Cognitive Coaching
2 Noreen Garman’s (1982) Concepts of Clinical Supervision
3 Carl Glickman’s (1981) Developmental Supervision
4 Helen Hazi’s (1994) Teacher Evaluation-Supervision Dilemma
5 Patricia Holland’s (1990) Interpretive Approach to Clinical Supervision
6 Edward Pajak’s (2003) Honoring Diverse Teaching Styles
7 Thomas Sergiovanni’s (1997) Community Theory of Supervision
8 John Smyth’s (1991) Critical Approach to Clinical Supervision
9 Kenneth Zeichner and Daniel Liston’s (2014) Reflective Teaching
10 Sally Zepeda’s (2012) Job-Embedded Supervision

Scholarly Significance

The paper will provide a succinct summary of each of the 10 ideas, the unique aspects of each idea, and the impact of the idea on the field. The paper will also discuss the relevance of the ideas, many of which are historical, to current scholarship and practice in supervision. Finally, the paper will invite those interested in instructional supervision to engage in dialogue on the ideas presented as well as to identify additional concepts that have had major impact on the field.

Author

• Stephen P. Gordon, Texas State University-San Marcos