Supervision Portfolio and Analysis of Questionnaire Coursework

Supervisor’s leadership style and relationships with teachers

Leadership is the essential quality required for the successful running of the administration of an institution. Teachers and supervisors should have a healthy relationship for the smooth functioning of the management process. For leading a group, organization, or team, the leader should have some leadership competence which includes make all together on a roof and motivate them to achieve specific goals. The leader should have the ability to find out the skills of their followers and route them in the proper way. In the book titled Language Teacher Supervision, the author gives valuable comments about leadership. Kathleen M. Bailey says “Effective leaders are flexible in emphasizing or deemphasizing relationship and task behaviors.” (Bailey, 2006, p.228).

In a school environment, the leaders should gain support from faculty members in all aspects which include the learning of students and promoting their extra-curricular activities. In schools teachers always focus on students’ learning which includes both academic and non-academic programs and they can understand students’ learning capacity. Taking decisions related to students’ learning, the faculty’s suggestions and opinions are valuable. If the leader takes a decision without considering teachers’ opinions, it may cause disagreement from the teachers’ side.

The disagreement with the leader’s opinion and the decision may lead to conflict between teachers and leader and will affect the institution’s progress. The misunderstanding may be a reason for this kind of disagreement. To avoid this, a better way is to create good communication between the teachers and the leader. This kind of interaction will create an atmosphere that will help the followers to express their expectations, and opinions related to the particular topic in a good manner. By open discussion, a leader can convey his ideas to the teachers without having or providing a chance for misunderstanding. For the proper management of the school atmosphere especially for the management of teachers, a leader should adopt all kinds of management techniques depending on the situation. Sometimes they adopt the democratic style, in some other situations autocratic style, and in some other times paternalistic style (People, n.d.).

Curriculum Development and Improvement

For the curriculum development, we should take the involvement of teachers, students, parents, and community representatives. Teachers know the teaching profession better than others and they can analyze the skills of students. According to my the new curriculum should provide a learning environment for students. So we have to give prime priority to understand students, such as their educational background, attitudes towards language and subjects, etc.

My students were not performing well when I joined the school as an instructional supervisor. The state curriculum underwent revision at the time of my arrival. We have developed a new curriculum in recent years and we are executing new changes in proper time. This curriculum is totally based on students’ minds; therefore they are making dazzling performances. Teachers are also doing their duty very well in our institution. They are easily mingling with the new curriculum.

As an instructional supervisor of the school, I included new subjects in the curriculum such as arts, music which are necessary for students’ creative development. To develop students’ fundamental skills I started language classes from the 1st grade. Teachers should teach spelling, writing, and reading in language classes. In this curriculum, I have given importance to academic education as well as physical education. And even I built up a healthy relationship with teachers and students that help students to learn the subject without fear. I started a new grade level depending on the student’s age and ability. This helped teachers to teach the lessons in depth.

As an instructional supervisor, I have gone through different curriculum methods such as Tyler Model; Taba Model; Saylor, Alexander, and Lewis Model; and Oliva Model to execute in my school. But I inspired and adopted the Tyler and Taba Model because they developed the curriculum is based on a post-modern viewpoint. Tyler Model curriculum has given the importance of theoretical aspects of teaching and learning. Tyler’s model targets a specific cluster of learners. He designed the curriculum basis on the needs of the community and the learners and it consists of values of education, goals, and aim, learning actions, common educational points, particular educational objectives and results, task analysis, and content selection. Tyler has given importance to the subject contents such as its priority, scope, and sequence. In the same way, Taba refined Tyler’s Model and she developed the curriculum based on students’ and teachers’ minds. Taba and Tyler both are given the importance of student’s cognitive, linguistic, psycho-social, and moral development. (Hewitt, 2006, P.140)

Teaching evaluation methods, and role(s) played by supervisor

Evaluation of the teaching policies is done based on the students’ learning. Administration set up in the classroom helps to develop the potentiality of the students continuously in the school. The teacher should consider the age, understanding capacity, and expectations of the students. The teacher should have good communication with the students. It helps the teachers to understand the students’ expectations and the method they preferred for studying. By this, each teacher can develop his own teaching policies and it helps students to understand different subjects in different ways. It is necessary to understand the students’ satisfaction with the quality of the teaching. Some methods used for evaluating students’ satisfaction are given below.

‘Student of the week’ helps to find the excellent student in each week by adopting different criteria, conducting a test for evaluating the student’s understanding of a particular subject at the end of each semester. Scholarships and awards can be given to the students according to their performance. Evaluation can be made through daily walk which helps the principal to get a real picture of student learning and it helps teachers in talking about the improvement of their teaching. E walk is used for recording data during classroom walks and it helps to take important decisions. (Current news, 2009).

Formal observation has to be made continuously throughout the year by the administrator and it helps to observe and evaluate the performance of the teachers in the classroom. Administrators have the responsibility to tackle the situation that may occur in the schools based on their policies. They should follow formal methods like observation and evaluation in analyzing the performance of the teachers in the classroom.

School Improvement Initiatives, and role(s) played by supervisor

A supervisor should have the ability to lead and develop a plan which is helpful for the progress of the school. For that, he/she should study the details and day to day activities of the school in an efficient manner and based on that study should prepare a report which includes current drawbacks in the working of the school and suggestions for efficient methods and ideas for improvement of the school.

A school have several improvement programs which include following;

1. Collaborative planning:- By collaborative planning through the meeting with teachers, the supervisor can understand how it works out in the classroom practices.
2. Differentiated instructions: – Supervisor can suggest differentiated instruction in lesson planning, teaching strategies, etc.
3. Alternative forms of math assessment: – Developing different forms in the assessment will help to improve student’s learning capacity in mathematics. (Adams, 1998).
4. Flexible grouping practices: – It helps to combine a diverse group of pupils together which ensures equality and excellence to all of them. It helps teachers to understand individual requirements in a broadway. (Grouping practices, n.d.).

From the above-mentioned programs, collaborative planning is the best method for the effective development of the school. It helps the teachers to make the common decision for effective teaching practice and to focus on a particular area that demands more attention. The major problem faced by the supervisor for implementing the above-mentioned initiatives is the resistance by the stakeholders to accepting the changes. They are not ready to break the traditional methods. A supervisor can further improve the improvement programs by conducting a survey among parents and teachers and collecting information from them. It will help to plan the improvement initiatives in an effective way at the school level and national level.

References

1. Adams, T L. (1998). Alternative assessment in elementary school mathematics. Child Hood Education, 74(4), 220-224.
2. Bailey, K M. (2006).Language teacher supervision: a case based approach: The supervisor’s leadership style. Cambridge University Press. 228. Web.
3. Current news: E walk software. (2009). Mississippi Bend: Area Education Agency.
4. Grouping practices. (n.d.). North Central Regional Education Laboratory. Web.
5. Hewitt, T W. (2006). Understanding and shaping curriculum: What we teach and why. SAGE. 140. Web.
6. People: Styles of management. (n.d.). Tutor2u. Web.