Supervision and Evaluation Public Education

Supervision and Evaluation

PUBLIC EDUCATION and PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

The teaching profession is different than what it was several years ago. Teachers face more challenges as more and more schools face overcrowding, low salaries and budget cuts. This is especially true in urban areas where many public schools reside. These issues alone have made the teaching profession less than attractive for many would-be teachers. Being a teacher is an important career choice because they play a major role in shaping our children including what and how they learn. Teachers spend as much time, if not more with students than parents do, so their role and profession is vital. Because so many have decided against a career in public education, a teacher shortage now exists.

To fill in the gap and make up the shortage, alternative methods of training leading to a teaching career have become popular if not necessary. The traditional route calls for a four-year bachelor's degree in education. Sometime during the last year of school, teachers are required to do their student teaching and clock in a certain number of hours in addition to gaining certification in order to prepare them for their new careers as a teacher. Grossman and Loeb state that alternative pathways to teaching have increased over the past two decades and programs such as Teach for America and the New York Teaching Fellows have helped thousands without a degree in elementary education become certified teachers (2010).

II. SUPERVISION

There are several forms of supervision: directive, indirective and collaborative. Each of these methods has its own merits. With directive supervision, the supervisor directs the teaching in a teaching manner which is to be modeled. The supervisor then evaluates the teacher's performance. One of the drawbacks of this form of supervision is that the supervisor is the person who determines what teaching methods should be used. There is no input from the teacher on his opinions. and, although we can assume that the supervisor knows what his job, there is always room for input on improvement or change and this method does not allow for this.

Indirect supervision is pretty much the opposite of direct supervision. With this type of supervision, the supervisor allows the teacher to come up with ideas and suggestions on methods of teaching. The supervisor is there for feedback or to answer questions, but for the most part he is hands off allowing the teacher greater autonomy in the classroom. The non-directive approach doesn't work for everyone because while some teachers are more independent in their thinking on how they wish to run their classrooms, others seek more guidance and feedback from the supervisor to be sure they are on the right path.

The collaborative supervision approach seems to be the best choice of the three. With collaborative supervision, there is more of a partnership between the supervisor and the teacher. Instead of the supervisor having complete control of the situation and telling the teacher what should and shouldn't be done in the classroom, or giving the teacher free reign in the classroom to test any ideas the teacher thinks might work, the collaborative approach takes into account both sides of the issue. The supervisor and teacher work together to come up with ideas to test in the classroom to find out what works and what doesn't. This method is most conducive to a favorable outcome because both parties are allowed to have input on the situation. Gebhard states that the supervisor's role here is to work with the teacher as opposed to telling the teacher what to do (1984).

III. FORMATIVE and SUMMATIVE EVALUATION

Formative and summative are two types of evaluation methods. The formative evaluation within a teaching environment is designed to help improve the processes already in place. This method of evaluation looks at what is working well with the current processes along with what does not work well. Formative evaluation is done in-house, meaning the evaluation is done by the supervisor or other administrative official of the school. A formative evaluation is more research oriented because it examines what is working as opposed to how a program has worked. On the other hand, summative evaluation has to do with the effectiveness of a particular program. A measure used in summative evaluations is usually some type of test that is administered to the teachers. This type of evaluation is more concerned with how a group of teachers perform within a given program. It gauges how much the teacher has learned by administering a test and assigning a letter grade or using numbers as a form of assessment. According to Kaye, both methods of evaluation help us to determine what is good and what is not good (2004).

Both of these types of evaluation methods are useful because on looks at the organization and the other looks at the people within the organization. They should go hand in hand. You cannot have a good teaching program in place and then have teachers who are not up to standard. By the same token, a school with excellent teachers and a poor curriculum will not work either. Both are needed to ensure success.