The philosophy that Northern State
University wants to convey is very clear: all supervision efforts during
Stage II or III 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 that resembles the non‑judgmental strategies of
peer-coaching, transformational, or clinical supervision.
To assure that this perspective is
upheld, only certain qualified personnel are selected to supervise. For
elementary education supervision, successful classroom teaching
experience is preferred as well as a master's degree program with
supervision credits included.
For secondary supervision, the methods
instructor for each content area may be assigned to supervise in a
domain and age-specific manner. Some of the supervisory personnel are
certified administrators with former supervisory roles in elementary and
secondary education.
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
cooperating teacher.
When restructuring is necessary, the
Director of Field Experiences teams with the university supervisor in
the evaluation process. Restructuring the student teacher's experience
means that the student teaching experience is either (1) terminated, (2)
altered with different settings, or (3) extended. In each case a Plan
of Assistance (POA) is filed and executed by the Director of Field
Experiences before any further efforts occur. A maximum of two student
teaching experiences sponsored by NSU is the extent of the School of
Education’s tolerance for achieving recommendations for certification.
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‑conferences, verbatim or selective scripting,
post‑conferences, non‑judgmental feedback, and weekly contact which
results in a minimum of three formal observations. Weekly contact may be
in the form of phone conversations, e-mails, 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 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
forms from both the university supervisor and the cooperating teacher)
to the Office of Field Experiences.