Personal Philosophy of Supervision Essay

In order to meet the needs of their students, administrators must practice effective supervisory practices. School leaders must be knowledgeable on the most recent research of supervisory practices. Principals must also be knowledgeable of professional development in order to enhance their teachers’ knowledge and skills. An administrator’s will be able to use diversified supervision to be able to provide support and guidance where it is needed most. Good connection between knowledge, skills and effectiveness! Professional development is essential in providing opportunities for educational staff members to learn about the latest topics in education. The purpose of this professional development is to continually educate educators to improve the quality of instruction in their classrooms (Glickman, Gordon, & Ross Gordon, 2008). As an educational leader I must build and support a community of learners. I must set the expectation that all members of our school community are learners and highly capable of achieving great things. I believe every member of our community is gifted in some way and can contribute to the success of the school (Sullivan, 2009). By valuing each staff member, parent and learner I am able to lead a culture of inquiry where there is an open and easy exchange of ideas and members are able to live what they really feel and care about. As a teacher I care deeply about my students and their beautiful, unique and interesting development as human beings. As a principal that will change to the entire school community–the teachers and their passions, the parents and their hopes and concerns, the lunch crew and their desire to do the best they can. The physical image of an ache, a yearning felt deeply, is something I hope to engender in our school community. When a community aches with caring personal agendas are set aside and a shared vision and purpose is embra ced. Wow!!! What a strong paragraph! I can see from this that you will be a passionate leader. When a community cares they embrace their responsibility  to keep learning and they thrive on moving ahead and away from status quo. As the leader of this community I must take the time to know our needs and challenges and skillfully manage tasks and resources to support our efforts. I believe a strong school leader builds a community of leaders. As a leader, always learning, I have the experience and confidence to share leadership with my staff and school community. Through relationships I have built I recognize and utilize opportunities for shared leadership. Involving all members of our school community results in shared ownership and investment in our end goal–the education of children. I must have courage to share leadership with my community by modeling risk taking and trust and turn over some decisions (Lipton, 2007). I also must be careful to follow-up and support those who take on leadership roles so I can be accountable for the actions of our community and the end results. As an educational leader I will commit my heart and soul to the success of our school and I will ask the same of our staff, parents and learners. Working together we will create a school community that is warm, safe, challenging and stimulating for all. I recognize leaders run up against hurdles in fulfilling the vision of a program. Leaders live with unpredictable days and under stress and in conflict. Leading with strength and perseverance while remaining connected to the community will navigate the challenges and lead to reaching our goals. My personal philosophy of school leadership continues to emerge as I grow my learning and experience. Each school community I am fortunate to serve wi ll affect me and add to the hue and texture of the tapestry of my life and my career as an administrator. Of the four supervisory approaches I identify myself with the collaborative approach most. Directive control involves the supervisor taking over an educator’s issue, identifying the problem and instructing the teacher to what he or she thinks needs to be done (Glickman& Gordon, Ross-Gordon, 2008). This approach ensures that teachers will use strategies in their classrooms approved by administrators, but is halts teacher creativity and educators will be less likely to take risks without supervisor approval. I feel that this supervisory method should be used as a last resort if a teacher truly cannot make an important decision for themself. The directive informational approach is a method best used for inexperienced teachers (Tschannen-Moran, 2004). With this supervision theory, supervisors identity goals and activities for teacher improvement plans. The supervisor is a source of information and receives quality feedback from teachers. One positive aspect of this method is the amount of feedback given to the teacher from the supervision. One negative, is that the teacher is then not taking full responsibility for teaching practices (Glickman& Gordon, Ross-Gordon, 2008). Nondirective supervision involves the teacher being an essential part of the decision making process. While the teacher is reflecting and thinking through his actions for instructional improvement, the supervisor assists in this thinking and reflection process (Glickman& Gordon, Ross-Gordon, 2008). The positive aspect of this type of supervision includes the teacher feeling comfortable enough to ask their administrator for help when needed and feeling comfortable enough to take risks in their classrooms (Rettig, Lampe, and Garcia, 2000). The negative includes teacher depending too much on supervisors when making decisions. I feel my personal philosophy on supervision aligns most closely with the collaborative style. Collaborative supervision involves the supervisor and the teacher both presenting their ideas and agreeing on a solution to a singular problem (Glickman& Gordon, Ross-Gordon, 2008). This supervisory style allows teachers to participate in the decision making process for their schools. This style will only work however, if teachers are on board to work collaboratively with each other as well as administration. Administrators that use a collaborative style of supervision posses the skills necessary to be a high performing principal. If one can collaborate with others, they have great interpersonal skills, competency and they have enough knowledge to know that if they don’t know all the answers, they are not afraid to seek out others to help solve school issues. All students can learn, the trick is discovering what learning style works best for each students. Leaders work in the same way. They have to discover  what type of leadership style will motivate teachers the best. In turn, it is up to the teacher to get to know the students needs and provide them with the tools to be successful. With this educational belief, I am inclined to use collaborative supervision to ensure teachers feel important and a part of the decision making process of the school. Teachers are essential to the school, and should feel that they are as well. I believe all the supervisory styles will be needed at different times and with different teachers, but I connect best with the collaborative supervision belief. Lauren- Your paper examines the reasons for the selection of your philosophy and it is well supported with logic and examples. The philosophy you best identify yourself with is the collaborative approach. You have explained how your supervisory approach aligns with this philosophy. Your examples like the importance of community involvement and passion do a nice job of supporting your thoughts. You have incorporated good supporting research and your paper is written at an appropriate level for a college paper but you do have a few errors that a proofreading should eliminate. Good job! References Glickman, C.D., Gordon, S.P., Ross-Gordon, J.M. (2014). Supervision and instructional leadership: a developmental approach (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Rettig, P.R., Lampe and Garcia, P. (2000). â€Å"Supervising Your Faculty with a Differentiated Model.† The Department Chair 11(2) Lipton, L. (2007). Learning-focused supervision. Training and Education in Professional Phycology, 8(3), 143-148. Sullivan, S. & Glanz, J. (2009). Supervision that improves teaching and learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. Tschannen-Moran, M. (2004). Trust matters: leadership for successful schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.