TEACHERS AND PRINCIPALS CLINICAL CLASSROOM INSTRUCTION, SUPERVISION AND MANAGEMENT IN THE PHILIPPINES, INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA1

 by: Dr. Frederick W. Gomez

Abstract

 

This paper encompasses the nature of instructional supervision and management in the schools focus in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. It investigates teachers and principal view on Instructional Supervision and Management (ISM)” an Outcome-Based Education (OBE) from the constructivist learning context. A qualitative approach on the descriptive documentary analysis technique was design with the use of the FGD and open-ended questions to come-up an in-depth facilitation of the data. One hundred teachers and twenty five principals and other heads were the direct respondents of the study. The questioning done personally by the researcher-agent on field in facilitation about the data collected through hypermedia msn or Skype; the responding rate of the participants was hundred percent. The discourses focused on four themes related to the research questions namely supervision as a continuous, developmental and corporate process; supervision as a specialists’ area; supervision as a role of principals and teachers in instructional management; supervision as a gate-keeper which help teachers through instructional pedagogy and paradigm. Evidences of findings revealed that transactional supervisory and managerial punitive process which made non beneficial to the teachers. The participant respondents stressed for involving teachers and principals as a subject specialist to make instructional supervision practices more meaningful. The findings advocated for supervision to be continuous developmental and corporate process. 

 

Short title: Clinical Instruction & Supervision in the Classroom

Institutional Research and Development Center (IRDC)

Introduction

The process and purpose of instructional supervision and management have been debated by K12 teachers, administrators, higher education scholars, and legislators (Congress Oversight Committee, 2012; Glickman, 2012; Sergiovanni & Starratt, 2011).According to Glickman (2012) “without a strong, effective and adequate staffed program of supervision, an effective school is unlikely to result”. Supervision can be defined as “the glue of a successful school” (Zepada, 2013). “The glue is the process by which some person or group of people is responsible for providing a link between individual teacher need and organizational goals that made individuals in the school as a dynamic, friendly workplace and harmoniously working toward their common vision, mission, philosophy, goals, objectives and strategy (VMPGOS) of what the school should be.

Unfortunately, there are more ‘glueless’ than glued schools. Meaning, they operates the school with the intention on personal gain. Several RRLS and research findings revealed on the effectiveness and efficiency of schools paint a dismal picture. Most schools simply do not make much difference in their students’ lives. Thus, the primary function of effective and efficient supervision is to take duty, responsibility and obligation by putting glue into the school”(p6) therefore, school must operate in the systemic behavioral environment provided by DepEd, CHED & ALCU as a process in the operation of transcendental supra-environment of the school (Sergiovanni & Starratt, 2012). Meaning, instructional supervision and management as a continuous developmental and corporate process; specialists’ area; proactive descriptive role of the principals and teachers must develop attitude and behavioral outcomes over the others. As a result, value cloud objectivity and rationality which cultural organizational behavior develop in an organizational development. Meaning, teachers and principals can make the learning environment clinically, supervised, and instructionally manageable.

Supervision and school improvement

The rethinking of Goldhammer (2012) advocacy on self supervision suggested that supervision increases teachers ‘willingness and ability to supervise themselves and collegial. While on the other hand, Zepeda, Wood, and O’Hair (2012) coined the term, “auto supervision,” to describe the ability of teachers to supervise them. Research has provided the rationale for collegial and peer coaching. Supervision can be seen as analogous to teaching in that teachers wish to improve students” behavior, achievement, and attitudes while supervisors wish to improve teachers’ behavior, achievement, attitudes and performance (Glickman et al. 2012), in the same vain “schools must link their instruction and classroom management with professional development, direct assistance to teachers, curriculum development, group development, and action research under a common purpose to achieve the VMPGOS made the academic workplace favorable” (p8).

Supervision for suppressing teachers

Zepeda and Ponticell (2012) conducted a study to determine what teachers “need, want, and get from supervision” (p71). Their findings supported the legitimate power of the supervisor dominating over the inferior teacher. Likewise the reward and expertise power build teachers and principals image in the instructional supervisory management technique. Five categories of supervision at its worst were identified by the participants, 100 teachers across three states, in this study. Categories included are: (1) supervision as a dog and pony show; (2) supervision as a weapon; (3) supervision as a meaningless/invisible routine; (4) supervision as a fix- it list; and, (5) supervision as an unwelcome intervention (p73).

Blumberg (2012), in Supervision and Teachers: A Private Cold War, described the negative relationship between supervisors and teachers, describing the resentment that teachers felt toward supervisors, and this resentment continues to be a major barrier in achieving benefit from the practice of supervision. Teachers’ perceptions of supervisors were negative, and the teachers believed that supervisors were not of any valuable assistance. Blumberg asserted that supervision was used as a means to control and to exert power. He concluded that supervision in schools had two main components: The first is that much of what occurs in the name of supervision in the schools (the transactions that take place between supervisor and teacher) constitutes a waste of time, concerns of Teachers and Principals on instructional which become a halo effect on the general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic. And this attribute not help the organization to transcend because it is tainted on individual biases (Robbins, 2013).

Supervision in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia

In the field of Educational Administration and Supervision that evaluation to teachers and principals is not harmful, not fault finding, not demoralizing and even not besmirching teachers and principals in their chosen field of human endeavor. In the other way around instructional supervision and management creates character relationships between teachers and supervisors as a group can be described as a private cold war. Neither side trusts the other, nor is each side convinced of the correctness of the process. (p5).For many teachers, supervision is a meaningless exercise that has little value other than completion of the required evaluation form. This happened because the institutional and personal VMPGOS does not jibe the systemic behavior of the institutionally created workplace. Glanz (2012) stated, “Historically, the evaluation function of supervision is rooted in bureaucratic inspectional-type supervision. In other words, the evaluative aspect of the supervisory function emanates from organizational requirements to measure and access teaching effectiveness” (p22) likewise, Moswela (2010) also has reported that instructional supervision in Botswana secondary schools is conducted for wrong reasons (p80). It has been seen in this RRLS (Review of Related Literature and Studies) that IMS  (Instructional Management and Supervision) were used in the whimsical and capricious advancement to those who are in the position for personal gains.  

Expectations from instructional supervision

Various authors have defined instructional supervision in different ways. , Glickman (2012) views instructional supervision as the actions that enables teachers the quality to improve instructions for students and as an act that improves relationships and meets both personal and organizational needs. Sergiovanni and Starratt (2011:6) describe instructional supervision as opportunities provided to teachers in developing their capacities towards contributing for student’s academic success. In view to provide real meaning to instructional supervision (p95) advocates for Teachers involvement in instructional supervision, Hoy and Miskel (2010) considered as an opportunity for competent teachers to explore the ways for professional developments. Data indicated in the clinical supervision models by Goldhammer (2012), Cogan (2010), to involve teachers in planning phase which is referred to Pre-conference with teachers, followed by conference and post conference after a long winded process on clinical supervision.

However, in some schools supervisors are known to be experts, passing along judgments and advice to teacher technicians. From the clinical lens of Fullan (2011) supervisors need to develop a new mind-set, breaking the bond of dependency created by overload and “packaged solutions” and thinking outside the box.  This is the area more research has to be done to determine to what extend the model is being practiced by the supervisors. In view of the above facts it’s necessary to study the nature of instructional supervision vision practiced in schools Asian countries particularly in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia because these Asian countries are within the economic hub of the world and they may able to contribute a tacit knowledge in the school room out of the era of hypermedia globalization.

Methodology

The study used a qualitative approach in data gathering and collection. Its qualitative nature arouses from the use of FGD and open-ended questions during the interview. The research used the human investment who is member in the research group international in carrying out data from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia in five occasions in one year time during the fiest of St John de Baptist on the school year 2013. The research was made for the purpose of the comparative study on the clinical and instructional supervision and management of the school in the member ASEAN countries. The method used inspires on the idea of ASEAN Incrementalization whose objectives are to educationally, geographically and organizationally made the school instructionally supervised and managed clinically through virtual organization to prepare the ASEAN cultural integration in a diverse society.

The FGD and Open Ended Questionnaire

A seven item questions in the questionnaire was developed to look back the teachers and principals experience in supervision. The questionnaire was tried out in nine (9) different schools (3 in Philippines; 3 Malaysia and 3 Indonesia) to explore the level of experience that the participants have on the instructional supervision, management and appropriateness on the level of difficulty to the respondents. Meaning, test validation of the questionnaire was made. The findings of the FGD (Focus Group Discussion) and open-ended questions are made to provide an overview of the teachers and principals in their supervisory and managerial service and formulate guidance /prompts for qualitative interviews.

Interview

The interview questions were taken from the DepEd Philippines questionnaire used on the regular placement services for teachers and principals. The FGD and open-ended questions during the interview were developed and given to the same teachers from the two schools to ensure clarity of responses on  how teachers and principals seen supervision. Both of the data collection techniques provokes thoughts and allows respondents the opportunity to express their opinion in greater detail, thereby revealing more information that the researcher may not be aware and taken as part of the critical and reflective processing of the data being collected. 

Participants

The participants of the study comprised 100 teachers and25 principals or other heads from   fifteen different secondary schools in the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. Participants were provided with questionnaire through personal engagement. All the respondents responded favorably. The FGD and the open-ended questions during the interview were made in an appointment bases on the collegial way because of the longer time needed for an interview and the distant of the inland-agent of the researcher. The interviews were conducted face to face and in the instance of the hypermedia were utilized using the yahoo messenger or Skype for confirmation and validation. The researcher utilizes his human resource friends and counterpart in the area to flattened the research locale.

Data Analysis

The analysis focused on the selection of items from the FGD and open-ended questionnaire during the interview schedule that related to issues on instructional supervision and management. The discussion was focused on four themes that are related to the research questions namely: (1) Supervision as a continuous, developmental and corporate process; (2) Supervision as a specialists’ area;(3) supervision as a role of principals and teachers in instructional management; and (4) supervision as a gate-keeper which help teachers through instructional pedagogy and paradigm. Afterwhich, percentage, mean, standard deviation were statistically utilized. Documentary descriptive and ethnographic techniques of eliciting data were humbly operationalized to aid the quantitative data. Therefore the marriage of the positivists and constructivist framework intertwined in the findings below.   

 

Findings and Discussions

Responses from the FGD and interview with open ended questions are reported together because the same questions applied to both. The response rate and participation rate for questionnaire and interview was hundred percent. The following are the findings and discussion of the study.

Supervision as a continuous, developmental and corporate process

According to Pajak (2012) instructional supervision is a corporate process between supervisor and supervisee. Group effort towards a group goal should not be prescriptive for teacher. Goldhammer (2012), Cogan (2010), suggest positive supervisory climate, a strong and dynamic relationship exists between teachers and supervisor. The significant number of teachers (n=92) from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia showed their concerns that supervisors didn’t involve them in instructional supervision process. Meaning only the supervisor evaluates teacher without a chance to evaluate the supervisor. 

There comments were “Teachers should be involved from planning to post observation issues since they are the people directly affected by it,” “teachers are the major players in the instructional supervision; hence their role must be viewed with utmost care and concern throughout the process”. “When I see my principal or head of department suddenly in ongoing class with files in hands, I feel that the time to complete the paper work has begun,” meaning it develop unfavorable climate of the instructional supervision and management. “If instructional supervision is to help the teachers in improving their teachings, then their role should not be neglected from beginning to end.” Sudden appearance of principal in ongoing class with papers and continuously writing comments are indicative of paper work not improving instructions”. Dean (2012) suggests that instructional supervision be made an  integral part of the curriculum, so that it’s a continuous and developmental process to support the teachers demand for a collegial instructional system. It’s clear from the reflective comments by the teachers that supervisory approach is summative, administrative and purposive, the purpose on completion of paper work is to help teachers to professionally grow with a preponderance of evidence. Here the teacher’s feelings of ownership of supervision are not seen.

In view of the researcher to make instructional supervision meaningful the blend of various models like Carl Glickman (2012) ‘Developmental Model’; Goldhammer (2012), Cogan (2010) ‘Clinical Supervision Model’ and Collegial Supervision Model would inculcate the feeling of ownership of instructional supervision process and change their attitude and behavior about instructional supervision and management. Significant number (n=89) from Philippine, Indonesia and Malaysia believe that the purpose of supervision made by the principals or other heads is punitive. 

This claim is made in light of comments such as “Supervisors only try to find fault in classroom teachings and never tell us our strengths”. “We feel insulted when our principal claims to find our shortcomings before students and tell us to improve upon those shortcomings without involving himself towards improvement”. “Supervisors are teaching same year and same subject but different division.” Every time he complains me of my teaching throughout the year. But always during external evaluation made by the students it results a better score.” Meaning there is a significant difference on the findings made by the supervisor versus to the student evaluation results. “Even for the last five successive years none of my student has failed in my subject but in him (supervisor), five students failed.”Meaning this time teachers compare the attitude and behavior of their own. “Comment my grammar yet he/she is not an expert of the field.” Teacher now expect an expert of the field.“I want to know who needs supervision and by whom.” Teachers and principals do not meet the same ground. The reason because they have different academic discipline and coming from different perspective and mental framework. However, the only paradigm that they can meet on the same ground is by ‘leveling-off’ through an open-self to development. Continuous schooling through instruction, research and extension would help them understand the ground roots of the matter. If only teachers and principals know that a teacher is a person, teacher and a professional one never lives in a forest without seeing a tree. Meaning, see teachers and principal’s limitation and help; one will benefit to the other along the process without shortcut.

Instructional supervision as a specialist area

Teachers (n=96) view instructional supervision as an area where they can play vital role right from planning. They expect their meaningful involvement as they have specialized knowledge in field of teaching and command over the subject. This can be observed from the following comments that “Instructional supervision and management should be left to the subject specialist”. “Only English language specialist can supervise English teacher and same with the other subjects”. Meaning, program head is also academically vertically articulated. “I was surprised with my supervisor’s comments on my pronunciation as I am English teacher while supervisor can’t pronounce most of the English words properly as he is Mathematics graduate.” This view comes in line with that of Hart and Bredeson (2011). It clearly reflects that teachers do not support the principal’s presence in the class without knowing the subject contents. This is because most of the principals or heads spend most of their time in office and have no touch to classroom teaching. This feeling is supported by the following comments. “Our heads can’t help us with our teaching problems as they are very busy with the administrative work”. Meaning, teachers are not yet academically independent because they don’t have a sense of academic proprietress.  “Being out of touch to the classroom teaching and lack of latest knowledge with subject contents and teaching methodologies, its immature to expect supervision out of such school heads or principals.” This would mean upgrading, enhancement and enrichment of academic cadence. To end up the debate, teachers and principals must continue their schooling to the specialize field they have undertaken and proceed to the higher learning in the graduate program with a vertical articulated disciplines. For principal, interdisciplinary academic intelligences is needed to face the multifarious academic instructional challenges. Meaning a challenge for them to take the academic road of their classroom  teacher in the field the way they are, so that we can see principal and teacher as a person, teacher and principal by position and profession.

Role of teachers and principals in instructional supervision and management

As indicated many times, teachers expect their involvement in planning of supervision and management prior to actual visit of principal or other designated head. It is well indicated in the clinical supervision models by Goldhammer (2012), Cogan (2010), to involve teachers in planning phase which is referred to Pre-conference, conference and post-conference with teachers. Most of the teacher respondents hold the instructional supervision and management is a professional activity that should be left to professionals themselves. Some of the principals advocated for involving the subject experts to carry out the process of supervision and management. Most of the principals and other heads (n=21) also want instructional supervision to be carried out by different persons throughout ongoing academic year. One principal said, “Instructional supervision should be spread among the different subject heads as it’s not one person’s cup of tea”. About twelve principals and other heads advocated for interdisciplinary supervision.  However, seven principals argued that it is their responsibility to supervise classroom teaching otherwise they won’t know about proceedings in ongoing classrooms instruction.  Principals have official role in overseeing the implementation of the broad curriculum in schools. Glickman (2011) and Sergiovanni and Starratt’s (2011) definitions of instructional supervision and management is to assess teachers in order to help them to perform better leads to an argument  that principals being  designated supervisors of all the activities in a school have to look the assessment of teachers too, i.e. they have to be instructional supervisors and managers too. The task of instructional supervision and management as envisaged by the significant number of respondents can be delegated to subject supervisors and subject specialists too. From the role of instructional leader mentioned by Zepeda Sally (2013), building strong team of teacher leaders is one of the important roles of school principals. Meaning, leadership style is important. The principals who support teacher leadership opportunities cultivate capacity for leadership who in turn promote leadership among more teachers. Collaborative and cooperative effort is needed. This helps people working with common goal, yield more positive results-reduce isolation, generation and refinement of ideas and approaches. But take note that managing and supervising an institutionalize act is always governed by policy. Therefore significant action is more on the policy oriented which break the bones on leadership. This is in accordance with the suggestions made by Hart and Bredeson (2011), Hoy and Miskel (2010), Everard and Morris (2013), that instructional leadership should be a corporate responsibility that empowers others. If a principal tries to discredit this responsibility including supervision, he would leave with nothing to show as achievement.

Benefits to teachers

From the evidences it can be observed that instructional supervision and management in these three Asian countries is not conducted effectively. Even though principals and other heads are responsible for the instructional supervision and management, the benefit out of the process is not at all. Almost all the teachers (n=97) commented that they are not at all benefited by the instructional supervision and management. The indicative comments are “For the last two years, “I have been supervised only three times and the same type of complaints I receive from the principal on my teaching methodologies”. “I don’t understand the purpose of supervision. Principal comes to class, observes, comments verbally and leaves.”“There is no follow up of that observation or post-conference.” “I can’t even predict if the principal is pleased with our teaching or not.”

Conclusions

The role of instructional supervision as envisaged throughout the findings it display the completion of paper work and fault finding process. The teachers in this study argue that supervisors do not consider instructional supervision as a platform to develop a sense of ownership for teachers and their professional growth and they are not at all benefited by the process. Instead it is done to punish,  demoralize and insult teachers (as evidenced by the use of sentences; supervisors only try to find fault, we feel insulting etc) rather than to improve their performances. Since the teachers do not agree with the way supervision is conducted, and which makes it far from corporate issue, they support supervision to be conducted by a group of people involving teachers too. The main issues that have emerged from this study are: first, the process of supervision should be carried out continuously; second, teachers need to be involved in the process of supervision and third, the principals have to take support of subject specialist and other heads for supervision.

REFERENCES

Blumberg, A. (2012). Supervisors and teachers: A private cold war. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Publishing.

Cogan, M. L. (2010).  Clinical supervision.  Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.

Dean, J. (2012)  Managing the Secondary School, 2nd edition. London: Routledge

Everard, B. and Morris, G. (2013) Effective School Management, 2nd Edition. London: Paul Chapman

Fullan, M. G. (2011). Leadership for the 21st century: Breaking the bonds of dependency. Educational Leadership, 55(5), 6-10.

Glanz, J. (2012).  Paradigm debates in curriculum and supervision: Modern and postmodern perspectives.  Westport, CT: Bergin and Garvey.

Glickman, C. D., Gordon, S. P., & Ross-Gordon, J. M. (2012). Supervision of instruction: A developmental approach.  Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Glickman, C.D. (2012).Supervision in tranisition. Alexandria, VA: ASCD

Goldhammer, R., Anderson, R. H., & Krajewski, R. J. (2012). Clinical supervision: Special methods for the supervision of teachers (3rd Ed.). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Hart, W.A. and Bredeson, V.P. (2011) The Principalship-A Theory of Professional Learning and Practice. New York: Mc Graw Hill

 Hoy,C., and Miskel,C.G.(2010) Educational Adminstration,4th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Moswela, B. (2010).Instructional Supervision in Botswana Secondary Schools-An Investigation. Educational Management, Administration & Leadership 38(1) (78-87).

Pajak, E. (2012). Approaches to clinical supervision: Alternatives for improving instruction. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon. 

Robbins, Stephen P. (2013). Organizational Behavior. San Diego University, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall International Inc.

Sergiovanni, T. J., & Starratt, R. J. (2011). Supervision: A redefinition. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.

Zepeda, S. J., & Ponticell, J. A. (2012). At cross-purposes: What do teachers need, want, and get from supervision? Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 14(1), 68-87.

Zepeda Sally (2013)  The Principal as an Instructional Leader: a handbook of Supervision, Eye on Education, New York

[1] This paper is presented by Dr Frederick W Gomez during the International Principal Forum at Bali, Indonesia last July 27, 2012 sponsored by Interfaith International – UNO & UNICEF for Children victims in Arm conflict ASEAN experience (updated)[1] Dr Gomez is connected before at LdeCU, COC, XU, ADMU, IC, and CU (formerly CCC) now at TCC and he is a proactive leading ‘personality’ on “Building Community Colleges.”  

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