Conference Reflection - Collaborative Supervision

From: Jennifer Blackwell
Email: jblackwell@svdpc.org
Date: May 22, 2008

Comments

I went to a session on Collaborative Supervision. I have been a supervisor of teachers for 4 years and have always dreaded the actual sitting down and supervising teachers - I know bad supervisor. I have alwasy encourage my teacher to stretch and grow, but maybe not always in the most positive manner. My supervisor rarely holds supervisions with me and I have never been educated on a better way to do them. Also, other "more important" things always seem to come up.

This session definetely changed how I think of supervision. Instead of me being in charge and possibly(probably) bringing up negative things teachers "have to work on", the teachers set the agenda to discuss things that they want to work on. Together we set goals and assign who is resposible of items that need to be completed. Recently I have been trying to pass on work/decisions that the teachers should be responsible for instead of me, the supervisor coming in and making the all the decisions. This new way of supervision will continue to support these changes. Now I just need to figure out how to schedule the time - maybe I will ask the teachers for their suggestions...