Exactly how do people learn? Thanks to learning theories developed relatively recently in what Ann Brown (1994) calls “the cognitive revolution,” educators know a great deal about the learning process. Yet there is, in schools today, a “monumental use-of-knowledge gap” (Perkins 1992, p. 3).
The same could be said of instructional supervision; although we have available a vast body of research about supervision, we suffer an enormous gap between what we know and what we practice.
The potential power of the research on learning was a major force behind the development of the Dimensions of Learning model (Marzano et al. 1988, Marzano et al. 1990, and Marzano 1992). (For those unfamiliar with our model, our “dimensions” are five types of thinking: positive attitudes and perceptions about learning; ways of acquiring and integrating knowledge; extending and refining knowledge; using knowledge meaningfully; and developing productive habits of mind, including critical, creative, and self-regulated thinking and learning.)
Our experience in working with principals and staff developers in Dimensions-related professional development institutes led us to extrapolate from the learning theory some general principles about supervision. Although we do not advocate translating findings from research into a prescriptive model of supervision, we think school leaders—regardless of their formal titles—will find these general principles useful in helping teachers plan instruction based on the best of what researchers have taught us about how learning occurs.
More generally, we want both supervisors and teachers to be better equipped to change the culture of teaching from a hierarchical, isolating atmosphere to a collaborative culture that promotes learning and growth for everyone involved. In short, we want to push the envelope in supervision.
Supervision Is ...
To guide our thinking about the kind of supervisory practices that enable teachers to use Dimensions of Learning in the classroom, we propose six, somewhat overlapping, principles from the research on supervisory practice and adult learning. We believe supervision must involve (1) teaching—that is, facilitating learning; (2) reflection on one's work; (3) proactive use of linguistic skills; (4) two-way growth; (5) group collaboration; and (6) a change in the norms that are central to the culture of teaching.
Let's look at each of these principles in turn.
1. Supervision Is Teaching
In helping teachers use the Dimensions program, we have found it helpful to think of supervision as teaching (Anderson 1982, Lechner-Knowles 1986), and to think of teaching, in turn, as facilitating learning.
Constructing meaning. Learning research—particularly research in reading comprehension—has shown us that we learn by constructing meaning. That is, we use what we already know about an idea or a skill to make sense of the new content. This is true for both students and adults; for example, teachers best learn a new strategy for teaching poetry or an idea from cognitive research by constructing the new knowledge within the classroom or in a context closely tied to their own teaching practice.
Consider some Georgia teachers whose 4th graders were studying Civil War battles as part of a unit on state history. One of us modeled a teaching strategy on how to develop a concept for three of these teachers, then followed up by discussing the strategy with the group. As expected, the teachers gained a more sophisticated understanding of the strategy. They also gained considerable insight into how one 4th grader's knowledge of SCUD missles in the Gulf War affected his understanding of a Civil War battle. Such teacher learning situations are, by design, very different from the traditional inservice sessions that constitute much of the staff development provided today.
Feelings and learning. A basic assumption of the Dimensions framework is that a student's attitudes and perceptions affect learning. Current research in student motivation shows that prior to and during learning tasks, students monitor feelings of acceptance, ability, safety, comfort, task clarity, and importance. They gather information about such questions as: Do I feel accepted? Can I do this? Am I relatively comfortable? Am I safe? Is this task important? Negative responses to these questions may cause the learning process to slow down or stop altogether (Marzano et al. 1988).
Adult learners monitor these same feelings and are similarly affected by negative attitudes and perceptions. Unless supervisors and other designers of teacher learning opportunities establish an environment conducive to learning, little learning is likely to occur. For example, during a recent staff development session with teachers from a North Carolina high school, one teacher asked her principal whether, in his classroom observations, he would be looking for use of the Dimensions strategies, and, if so, what he would do if a teacher didn't “get it right.” While ostensibly asking about messing up one lesson, this teacher was obviously checking on the broader issue of the safety of her own learning environment.
Procedural vs. declarative knowledge. One premise of the Dimensions model is that learning involves the acquisition of two kinds of knowledge: declarative—the who, what, where, and when (Who is the new Senate majority leader?) and procedural—the how-to (how to solve a quadratic equation or operate a lathe).
Procedural knowledge develops differently than does declarative knowledge. Teaching is a performance, and, like other performances, it has much to do with a person's knowledge of technique. Procedural knowledge develops through levels of competence, from novice to expert, and as that competence grows, certain teaching strategies are more helpful than others. For example, if a teacher wants to become skillful in using the Dimensions strategy of investigation, we demonstrate important variations of investigation and mistakes other teachers commonly make.
2. Supervision Is Reflection
The supervisory process is at its best when it encourages reflective practice. Central to the idea of reflective practice is the identification of discrepancies between beliefs and actions. By reflecting on these discrepancies, both teachers and supervisors can identify ways to improve the quality of their work. Interest in reflective practice dates back to John Dewey, but it enjoyed a resurgence among educators in 1987 when Donald Schon published Educating the Reflective Practitioner.
- Examining beliefs. Here, an individual identifies a strongly held educational belief, describes it in writing, and then thinks deeply about how it developed. For example, a teacher we know believes strongly that a child's characteristics should never be ridiculed. After thinking about this, she realized that she formed this idea when she was a college freshman. On the first day of a speech class she was asked to introduce herself, but was interrupted by the professor ridiculing her southeast Missouri accent: “Oh my God! You are going to be my summer project!” he declared. Thereafter, whenever she spoke in class, she had to repeat what she had said until it sounded more acceptable to him.In addition to critical incidents such as these, educational beliefs are shaped by past experiences with parents, mentors, and other role models. Through the reflective process, we usually discover that many of our actions are the results of unexamined beliefs—some of which we profess not to hold. This discovery alone often enables us to modify our actions so that they are more consistent with what we say we believe.
- Modeling reflection. This can be a powerful way to engage other adults in reflective practice. One California principal regularly asks her faculty and staff to provide feedback about her use of productive habits of mind, using this feedback to detect any discrepancies between her beliefs and actions. Such discoveries can be painful at times: This principal, for example, recently learned that during a school remodeling project, her staff did not view her as being quite as open-minded and flexible as she had imagined.
3. Supervision Requires a Proactive Use of Linguistic Skills
Linguistic studies of face-to-face communication have made significant contributions to the body of research on supervision. Yet in traditional supervisory practice, these contributions, too, have largely been ignored. Educators have only recently acknowledged the importance of such skills, in large part made popular by Costa and Garmston's popular cognitive coaching model (1989, 1994).
In our training sessions, we have discovered the significance of how we define communication. Even though some researchers have estimated that as much as 85 percent of an instructional supervisor's behavior is talk, many school leaders do not even recognize, much less attend to, the effects of their language on others. But language is important. When supervisors see their role as that of disseminators of information, they tell; when that role shifts to facilitators of understanding, they frame questions and restate messages.
These different linguistic acts elicit different responses, sometimes almost too subtle to recognize. For example, in our work with teachers, they are initially impressed by the power of thinking out loud. They will make comments like, “These conferences help me think more clearly” or “I always get such good ideas when we talk.” Later, they will begin to reflect on the supervisor's language and mention that the way a particular question was asked shifted their thinking, or that they like it when the supervisor respects their thinking by pausing and restating what was heard.
As practitioners become increasingly aware of their own use of language and more comfortable with linguistic skills such as active listening and framing questions, they report renewed enthusiasm for talking with colleagues about teaching and learning. A midwestern high school business education teacher and team leader described the effects of such communications skills: Jan and Steve did not like it much when I first started to observe them in their classes. They'd just listen to my comments and seemed most interested in whether or not they were doing it right—you know, using the [Dimensions] strategies correctly. But once I started listening in the way we learned—using probing and paraphrasing—I couldn't get them to stop talking.
4. Supervision Is Two-Way Growth
The jury is still out on whether the supervisory process can be worthwhile when there is unequal power between the participants (see, for example, Nolan 1989 and Garman 1990). We do know, however, that unless the supervisor can function as an equal and establish trust and collegiality, neither the supervisor nor the teacher will grow from classroom experiences (Hargreaves and Dawe 1990) and the supervisory process will, as Garman (1986) has shown, continue to be little more than ritual.
For example, several Philadelphia teachers were encouraged to select a “reflective partner” with whom they would regularly discuss their use of the program's ideas and strategies as they developed thematic units. In bimonthly meetings with their regional superintendent, these teacher teams reported a resulting sense of renewal, growth, and energy.
An elementary principal in Philadelphia implemented study groups. One group focused on using thematic units within the unit planning framework, as suggested in the Dimensions of Learning teacher's manual (Marzano et al. 1992). As the group developed, the team continued to come to the principal for guidance and approval. But he readily admitted that the teachers knew more about thematic unit planning than he did, although he was willing to sit with them and learn with them. They soon pushed his thinking—and his growth—on the issue of lesson plans.
A California principal says this about her relationship with her teachers: I can't hope to know the Dimensions of Learning model as well as I would as a teacher. I think it helps the teachers relax when they realize that I am not the expert and that I am learning right along with them.
Another West Coast principal engaged her faculty in structured reflection about their staff development program. The teachers discovered that even though they had assumed responsibility for planning some learning opportunities, staff development still consisted of a series of unrelated, episodic events, with very little impact on teaching practices.
Garman (1986) stresses that only teachers themselves can provide the interpretative knowledge needed to understand teaching acts. For this reason, she says, the supervisor and teacher must function as equal partners in the process of reflective inquiry. In 1992, Gordon observed that supervision is indeed shifting toward a more empowering and enriched version of itself, and the following year, Sergiovanni and Starrett called for a redefinition of the field. Glickman (1992) has even suggested that the term supervision itself may be outmoded.
5. Supervision Is Group Collaboration
Principals continue to identify instructional supervision as their most difficult responsibility (Lortie 1992). A welcome development in this regard is a growing trend toward group collaboration in supervision.
Several districts are experimenting with alternatives to the one-on-one relationship between a principal and a teacher (Poole 1994, Greene 1992). One of the more promising is a system that Cathy Harwell and Linda Hawkins set up in the Carrollton Farmer's Branch Independent School District in Carrollton, Texas. After training in collegial coaching, teachers select partners and work together with one another. The principal, who couldn't possibly coach all the teachers in depth, sits in on the initial planning conference, the evaluation conference, and sometimes on other occasions—if invited. This kind of relationship appears to foster collegial and professional growth that far exceeds other forms of evaluation.
A midwestern middle school introduced another variation. Teams of three or four teachers meet regularly to discuss their teaching practices, especially the Dimensions strategies. Through agreement with their principal and district administrators, they were excused from the traditional teacher evaluation process for the year. Their reflective dialogues may be based on classroom observations, but more frequently they focus on their own portfolio-like collections of information. They use portfolio items to interpret the teaching and learning in the classroom.
Before these teachers put together their portfolios, they had opportunities to learn about reflective practice, the dialogue skills of probing and paraphrasing, and data collection techniques. They were also asked to make a commitment to their reflective dialogue team partners.
6. Supervision Requires Changing the Norms That Are Central to the Culture of Teaching
Supervisors must be willing to confront the very heart of schooling—the teaching and learning process and the culture in which it occurs. Unfortunately, the schools in which most of us work have structures that freeze the hierarchical, isolating atmosphere in its current state.
School leaders can sensitively incorporate the principles/strategies we have discussed to bring about change, in particular, collaboration, dialogue, and reflection.
Supporting collaboration. The shift toward more collaborative supervisory processes may end up dispelling the isolation of much traditional teaching. At the very least, it is bringing about what Poole (1994) describes as a “softening of the hierarchy of supervision.”
But the willingness to work collaboratively is not enough; structures that support collaboration are also important. In addition to the collaborative group processes school leaders are using in alternative supervision, they are successfully using a number of differently structured discussion groups. Among the more intriguing are coaching rounds, case presentations, and informal forums, the first two both modeled after medical practice.
In coaching rounds, teachers and administrators form small two- or three-person teams and observe teaching episodes. Nonjudgmental discussion sessions then follow the rounds. Presenters describe particularly challenging teaching situations to a larger group of teachers, who then help clarify the critical factors in the case and explore alternative techniques for handling it. In the informal forum, participants agree to follow rules that structure their dialogue. The rules may, for example, specify topics, time lengths for each part of the discussion, and the purposes of comments.
Dialogue. Because meaningful dialogue can occur only within trusting relationships, establishing appropriate ways of talking to one another is important. Developing understanding and comfort with certain linguistic skills—for example, active listening, attending to both verbal and nonverbal messages, and appropriate questioning—facilitates critical discussions about beliefs, values, and actions, and permits adult learning to become an accepted practice.
Reflection. One of the most powerful ways that school leaders can change adult relationships is by modeling reflective practice. What leaders choose to discuss, and how they share ideas with others, significantly influence the school's culture. When facilitating school meetings, for example, leaders can encourage participants to back up and consider the questions they are asking before spending time discussing solutions. This can change the way that groups define and discuss problems. During confrontational debates, a good strategy is to ask those involved to pause and restate what they are hearing so that they can focus on the problem more objectively.
Organizations, like reflective practitioners, must continually examine what they believe and do, seek more information about those beliefs and actions, and then plan for future action. Mechanisms that encourage individuals to gently challenge their school's actions foster “organizational” learning. A simple example is encouragement of the question “Why do we do this?”
We have seen how one or two reflective practitioners, working with other colleagues, can begin to transform the school into a collaborative, reflective institution that promotes continuous learning and growth for all. When schools operate in this way, they become true learning organizations (Senge 1990).
