Supervision & Evaluation: Current Trends

Current and Future Trends

Distributed leadership is the most current phrase to enter the realm of supervision in education (Mangin & Stoelinga, 2008).  Distributed leadership borrows heavily from both Goldhammer and Cogan’s perspective (as cited in Nolan & Hoover, 2008) regarding the separation of the evaluator versus the supervisor and suggests that one person that plays both roles effectively is extraordinary (Taylor, 2008).  The remedy proposed is to distribute the role of supervisor to those identified as instructional coaches.  The goal of the instructional coach is to positively impact a teacher’s proficiency level in the use of research-based practices that will in turn increase student achievement (Knight, 2007).

The instructional coach as the recipient of distributed leadership specifically coordinated to the role of the supervisor is to align the support that they provide to teachers in a similar manner to that of the model propose by Hunter (as cited in Glatthorn et al., 2009).  The objective of the instructional coach is to provide instructional support aligned with research-based practices to teachers to increase the teachers’ proficiency level with curriculum and instruction (Knight, 2007).  While the primary focus of supervision as outlined in a coaching model was on increasing a teacher’s skill level in using best practices (Knight, 2007; Joyce & Showers, 2002), future trends dictate the need for measuring the effects of instructional coaching as they relate directly to student achievement (Richardson, 2008).

Reference

Glatthorn, A. A., Boschee, F., & Whitehead, B. M. (2009). Curriculum leadership: Strategies for development and implementation (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Joyce, B., & Showers, B. (2002). Student achievement through staff development (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Knight, J. (2007). Instructional coaching: A partnership approach to improving instruction. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Mangin, M. M., & Stoelinga, S. R. (2008). Effective Teacher Leadership: Using research to inform and reform. New York, NY: Teacher’s College, Columbia University.

Nolan, J. H., & Hoover, L. A. (2008). Teacher supervision & evaluation: Theory into practice (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Richardson, J. (2008). Student achievement scores prove professional learning’s merit. Journal of Staff Development, 29(1), 69-71.

Taylor, J. E. (2008). Instructional coaching: The state of the art. In M. M. Mangin, & S. R. Stoelinga (Eds.), Effective Teacher Leadership: Using research to inform and reform (pp. 10-35). New York, NY: Teacher’s College Columbia University.