Importance of the supervisor in school improvement | 2022

All schools are now required to have a minimum of a qualified teacher in each class. This is to ensure that standards and quality are achieved. However, this has not been the case and poor-quality teachers are still able to slip through the cracks.

A supervisor can play a critical role in school and student learning improvement, but the nature of that role may depend on the type of school improvement initiative undertaken.

The present study explored the role of the supervisor in two types of school improvement initiatives: whole-school reform and teacher improvement. In both cases, we found that the supervisor played an important role in creating a shared understanding of the reform or improvement initiative and in helping to coordinate the efforts of different actors within the school. However, the nature of that role varied depending on the type of initiative.

This blog will explore the importance of the role of the supervisor in school improvement and how a personal supervisory platform will enhance teaching and learning.

Introduction to School Improvement

School improvement is basically focusing on the interests of students. This focus is best achieved by understanding the needs of students and proposing ways to address these needs. As part of this process, schools conduct surveys and interviews to identify student interests so they can focus on what is most important.

Elementary School Teachers Many topics in elementary education revolve around student needs, including Kindergarten, reading, and instructional strategies. Special attention must be given to English language learners (ELLs) and students with special needs(People, 2022). Teachers also help students with special interests, including science, mathematics, and technology.  Secondary School Teachers Secondary school teachers are the experts in their subject areas. Because of the focus on higher-order thinking they must also direct their students to the area where they need help or assistance.

What are Professional Learning Communities?

Professional learning communities in regards to school improvement are not actually that new, but the idea of looking at them from a distance and the concept of them being made up of people who can come from all different kinds of backgrounds, who know how to create and transform for the better, and how to be creative in what they do and thinking in new ways has been just introduced. And so this is not a new concept, but maybe a new idea put into practice.

How does it work? Basically, professional learning communities are groups of teachers who set up a time for them to meet to work on specific projects that they want to do in their schools, and they will spend a certain amount of time talking about it, talking about what they want to accomplish, taking some time out to get to know each other. They will often meet on weekends, and they will continue for many months. They can work toward a particular goal. It’s not just a workshop, but they will set up plans of action and get to know each other and understand each other’s teaching in a deeper way.

What is the importance of supervisors in student learning?

Supervisors are important in any field. They help give direction to the team as well as decide on a uniform dress code, set firm deadlines, classroom instruction schedules, and allow for a level of team autonomy. They also act as the contact and clearinghouse for workplace problems or difficulties(Andrews, 2022).

With effective and efficient supervision, a supervisor's job is to keep the employees motivated and to help make things run as smoothly as possible. The supervisor is responsible for something called workflow. The supervisor does not handle day-to-day work but merely coordinates the way work is performed. This is because, in some ways, the supervisor communicates with the employees. They relay the company's mission and expectations to the employees and leave it up to the employees to perform the job to the best of their ability.

The supervisor's job in relation to school improvement in educational institutions is to determine what needs to be done to improve the system so that education is carried out as efficiently and effectively as possible.

One way to do this is for the supervisor to formulate working groups and then focus hierarchies on the problem at hand. Each working report should have a goal and when the report is completed organizations achieve goals are set. Schools set goals: in terms of student achievement, school curriculum, teacher evaluation, job satisfaction, etc. Supervisors plan and identify means to the ends and the groups identify problems. The second way is the use of working groups to make recommendations.

A problem determines priorities, and these become the issues of the working groups. The aim of the working groups is to work closely with respective managers and force decisions on how to solve those problems, it is not the responsibility of working groups to make the decisions. The recommendations of the working groups form a basis to many of the decisions.

How the personal supervisory platform will enhance teaching and learning

A personal supervisory platform is learning software that is used in schools and universities to enhance teaching and learning(CreatingSupervision, 2022). There are some critical components that are needed to consider when designing such software and from this perspective, the software will have a significant impact on the way educators teach and learn. The design should be adapted to the practical needs of the target application.

A good example of a personal supervisory platform is the program KSM (Książka w Szybkim Multipleksie) (Książka in the Faster Multimedia) developed by the Jagiellonian University in Poland (Polish company, 2011). The program is a modification of the e-Book reader IceBooks. The main improvement is the greater adaptation to the specific profile of faculty (tenured and non-tenured personnel) as this software is developed for college and university lecturers. 14.3.3 Design Issues Among the other reasons behind the selection of KSM as a design pattern is the fact that the software has a full user community and recommendations for the use of the product are guided by the experience of users on the project.

The personal supervisory platform enhances teaching (teacher performance) and learning through the collaborative learning environment, active feedback-automated gradation, and the opportunity for students to take responsibility for their studies. The automation of the process of managing the study organization provides learners with the motivation and ability to personalize their studies.

Teaching assistants monitoring the grades and supervisors of courses can both access the learning process in real-time to provide timely feedback. The system is also open source and can be implemented on different platforms. The system is also used to implement learning management activities on educational websites.

What is the role of supervision for educational development in a classroom environment?

The role of supervision for educational development is varied and often difficult to pinpoint. The task of observation is not always as easy to see as one might think. The supervisor often cannot see all the educational development in a student, but not because they are not there in person. The supervisor needs observational and diagnostic techniques to be able to assess the development of a student and the class in which they are struggling. In doing this, the supervisor must rely on affective, cognitive, and behavioral change to be able to correctly identify the pupil’s development.

Both affective and cognitive traits are present in a student, which in turn can contribute to behavioral problems in classroom behavior. In the classroom, both the teacher and the student's affective traits refer to the pupils’ behavior as it pertains to other pupils and/or members of the teaching staff, while cognitive traits refer to pupils' ability to understand the knowledge and material being taught. For example, in a primary classroom, the teacher will have to teach the basics of reading and writing.

References

ANDREWS, A. 2022. The Importance of Having a Good Supervisor [Online]. ZandaX. Available: https://www.zandax.com/management-blog/the-importance-of-having-a-good-supervisor [Accessed 2022].

CREATINGSUPERVISION. 2022. Creating supervision [Online]. creatingsupervision. Available: http://creatingsupervision.weebly.com/supervisory-platform.html#:~:text=In%20order%20to%20be%20an,to%20be%20reflected%20in%20practice. [Accessed 2022].

PEOPLE, U. O. T. 2022. What Is ELL In Education And Why It’s Important [Online]. University of the People. Available: https://www.uopeople.edu/blog/what-is-ell/ [Accessed 2022].

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