The philosophy that Northern State University
wants to perpetuate is very clear: all supervision efforts are geared
toward non-judgmental feedback from supervisory personnel within the
learning community. Novice teachers who are performing well receive
supervision from cooperating teachers and university supervisors who
resemble the non-judgmental strategies of peer-coaching,
transformational, or clinical supervision.
Novice teachers who are marginal performers
receive peer coaching techniques from cooperating teachers but pure
evaluation from university supervisors. Since it is the responsibility
of the university supervisor to assign the pass/fail grade, any decision
to restructure a student teacher's experience has to be driven by data
collected through an evaluation process. It is the intent of this
philosophical perspective to place the burden of identifying
incompetence on the university supervisor. This process attempts to
salvage the relationship between the student teacher and the cooperating
teacher.
Even though university supervisors have the
autonomy to supervise in a manner conducive to their particular
strengths, certain elements of the supervision process are mandated.
Those elements include pre-conference, verbatim or selective scripting,
post-conferences, non-judgmental feedback, and weekly contact which
results in a minimum of two formal observations. Weekly contact may be
in the form of phone conversation, informal visits or written weekly
schedules accompanied by memos.
Supervisors utilize peer coaching,
transformational, or clinical supervision models while achieving these
ends. Proper documentation accompanies the supervision act. A copy of
any observation record is supplied to the cooperating teacher,
university supervisor, and the student teacher. At the end of the
experience, university supervisors provide a copy of all records (log of
visits, Periodic Progress Reports, grade request, and Final Evaluation
form) to the Office of Field Experience.
Evaluation Of The Student Teacher: Supervision
and/or evaluation includes the completion of the form,
Final
Evaluation Form. This evaluation sheet contains sections for the
evaluation of the competencies and personal traits and characteristics
of the student teacher based upon the degree to which the student
teacher made a contribution to the children's learning. Evaluations by
the cooperating teacher and the university supervisor should be revealed
to the student teacher though
Periodic Progress Reports and the
final evaluation form.
The cooperating teacher and the university
supervisor must both compete a final evaluation form which should be
returned to the Director of Field Experiences. A grade of either
"satisfactory" or "unsatisfactory" is assigned by the university
supervisor after consultation with the cooperating teacher and must be
reported to the Director of Field Experiences after the student teaching
assignment has been completed at the time of the Culminating Seminar.