Goal 2 : learning
Learning is defined as a rearrangement and restructuring of mental processes. Every supervisory conference is an opportunity for both supervisors and teachers to can also more about themselves, each other, the students and the content of the lesson. Supervisors and teachers can also gain insight into their personal belief systems and understanding of the process of supervision during conferences.
The assumption that teaching essentially involves a series of decisions made before, during, and after instruction leads Costa and Garmston to conclude that supervision should focus on helping teachers to learn how to make better decisions. They identify a series of supervisory behaviors that facilitate this type of learning.
1. Formulate a clear image of the desired long – range outcomes of the supervisory relationship. With cognitive coaching the teacher should ultimately acquire intellectual functions that are basic to effective instruction, such as planning, teaching toward a goal, self – analysis, and learning form experience.
2. Ask the teacher to describe in specific detail the elements The supervisor may elicit form the teacher descriptions of desired student behavior or help to develop observable indicators of, for example. “enthusiasm among primary grade children.”
3. With the teacher, develop a map or plan for achieving the desired outcomes. Strategies for facilitating movement by the teacher from the existing state to the desired state aer designed. Possible barriers alternative approaches are also identified.
Costa and Garmston believe that the outcomes envisioned by the supervisor cannot diverge greatly from what they term the positive intentions of the teacher’s present behaviors. They suggest that the supervisor’s plans, in, other words, must be consistent with the teacher’s beliefs and purposes or the teacher will unconsciously subvert the process. A supervisor is more likely to succeed by helping a teacher to consciously ways of behaving that are consistent with this image. The supervisor assists the teacher in exploring and selecting new behaviors that are more effective but still consistent with the teacher’s fundamental positive intentions.
Supervisors need a wide variety of supervisors strategies and approaches to help teachers improve their thinking. These are best used flexibly yet persistently, as behavioral cues exhibited by the teacher change. Questioning strategies, for example, are fundamental to cognitive to cognitive coaching. Through questioning, supervisors can help teachers to clarify and probe inner meaning and intellectual functions. Skillful questioning is also intended to stimulate think and contribute to the development of new understanding.
The range and repertoire of choice and strategies that are available to a teacher can be effectively expanded when supervisor diagnose and use the teacher’s preferred learning style and are aware of the teacher’s patterns of decision making and inherent motivation. Supervisors can facilitate learning on the part of teacher by helping them to identify limitations, omissions, and illogical assumption in their thinking. This is accomplished by gently and judiciously challenging vague statements that teachers may make, and asking them to be more specific. The following examples are suggested by Costa and Garmston.
- If a teacher speaks of students generally, the supervisor may ask, “Which students?”
- If a teacher suggests that he or she wants students to behave, the supervisor could ask, “Behave how, specifically?”
- If a teacher suggests that be or she is incapable of doing something, the supervisor might ask, “What is preventing you?”