1-A

Professional Development Activity 1-A
Submitted by Duncan Waite, Texas State University
(Comment option available at the bottom of the page.)

This activity relates to all of the standards of democratic supervision.

You and your colleagues will have the opportunity, through this professional development activity, to come up with and implement your own standard(s) for democratic supervision where you live and work.

First, identify those colleagues who would agree to work to make your classrooms and school more democratic. It really doesn’t matter whether or not you consider your school or classroom to be democratic already. The path to democratic supervision (and, by extension, classrooms and schools) is a journey and not an end. There is always room for growth.

Next, secure the support of your administrators. For teachers, this might be the vice principal and/or principal; for principals, this might be your district curriculum director or superintendent. (Note: There are those who prefer to operate under the radar and those who believe it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. They will initiate changes before alerting those higher up in the organization. This is a tactical decision you must make based on your knowledge of your situation. Be advised, though, to make changes systemic, eventually everyone will need to be on board.) If your district or state has a required teacher evaluation/assessment protocol or instrument, see if you can get a waiver by substituting the form of democratic supervision you create. If not, your democratic supervision will need to be a parallel system, at least initially.

Next, assemble your colleagues. (Treats are always nice, because as everyone knows, the first rule of staff development is that if you don’t feed the teachers, they’ll eat the children!) Begin discussion. You might want to use some of these questions to spark a dialogue: What do we hope to accomplish?
How do we know what democratic supervision would look like? Who is to be involved? How?

Then, begin a discussion about parameters: Do we want and need formal roles for our meetings (i.e., convener, recorder, time-keeper, etc.)? Just how formal do we want to be? How will we organize ourselves?

You may decide that you don’t know enough about democracy, democratic supervision, and how to implement it. In that case, book study is a possibility. Discuss the standards presented here: Do they make sense? Are any standards missing that you feel are important? Can you combine one or more? Select one from the list or through your discussions to concentrate on for a given period of time, say a week or two or a month. Consult Pajak’s (2000) book of supervision models, select an appropriate model, and integrate the democratic supervision standard you’ve chosen with the model. (You might want to use the standard you’ve chosen to frame your supervision conferences.)

Meet periodically to discuss how the implementation is going and to problem solve.
Then you have to decide on next steps:
Will you select another supervision model to try, or perhaps another democratic supervision standard?
Will you involve more people in the project?
Will you expand beyond supervision to make other aspects of your school and/or district more democratic?

Assessment

In your discussions, you’ll want to assess the project. Use the standards listed and judge how you’ve done against them, individually and collectively. Use them in both a formative and a summative fashion; that is, how can we get better and should we completely stop what we’re doing and concentrate on something else? Take the second standard as an example. The standard encourages more self-directed individuals and collectivities through democratic supervision. Ask yourself, either formally or informally, did this occur as a result of your democratic supervision efforts? If so; how? What evidence do you have that this occurred? If not, what can be done to improve the outcome?

First, each member should answer these questions for themselves. Next, the group members should come together to share their individual answers to the questions and discuss the group response or assessment of the activities. Then it’s time to cycle back: Are your aims still valid (that is, are you still committed to fostering democratic supervision)? If so, should you continue or alter some aspect of the project, as mentioned above? Allow for divergence and allow time for these efforts to take root. Most of all, celebrate your successes, both large and small.

Reference

Pajak, E. (2000). Approaches to clinical supervision. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon.

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Propose New Activity

Comments
Please include your name, organization and the number and letter of the professional development activity with your comments.


Professional Development Activity 1-A Submitted by Duncan Waite, Texas State University (Comment option available at the bottom of the page.) This activity relates to all of the standards of democratic supervision. You and your colleagues will have the opportunity, through this professional development activity, to come up with and implement your own standard(s) for democratic supervision where you live and work. First, identify those colleagues who would agree to work to make your classrooms and school more democratic. It really doesn’t matter whether or not you consider your school or classroom to be democratic already. The path to democratic supervision (and, by extension, classrooms and schools) is a journey and not an end. There is always room for growth. Next, secure the support of your administrators. For teachers, this might be the vice principal and/or principal; for principals, this might be your district curriculum director or superintendent. (Note: There are those who prefer to operate under the radar and those who believe it is better to ask forgiveness than to ask permission. They will initiate changes before alerting those higher up in the organization. This is a tactical decision you must make based on your knowledge of your situation. Be advised, though, to make changes systemic, eventually everyone will need to be on board.) If your district or state has a required teacher evaluation/assessment protocol or instrument, see if you can get a waiver by substituting the form of democratic supervision you create. If not, your democratic supervision will need to be a parallel system, at least initially. Next, assemble your colleagues. (Treats are always nice, because as everyone knows, the first rule of staff development is that if you don’t feed the teachers, they’ll eat the children!) Begin discussion. You might want to use some of these questions to spark a dialogue: What do we hope to accomplish? How do we know what democratic supervision would look like? Who is to be involved? How? Then, begin a discussion about parameters: Do we want and need formal roles for our meetings (i.e., convener, recorder, time-keeper, etc.)? Just how formal do we want to be? How will we organize ourselves? You may decide that you don’t know enough about democracy, democratic supervision, and how to implement it. In that case, book study is a possibility. Discuss the standards presented here: Do they make sense? Are any standards missing that you feel are important? Can you combine one or more? Select one from the list or through your discussions to concentrate on for a given period of time, say a week or two or a month. Consult Pajak’s (2000) book of supervision models, select an appropriate model, and integrate the democratic supervision standard you’ve chosen with the model. (You might want to use the standard you’ve chosen to frame your supervision conferences.) Meet periodically to discuss how the implementation is going and to problem solve. Then you have to decide on next steps: Will you select another supervision model to try, or perhaps another democratic supervision standard? Will you involve more people in the project? Will you expand beyond supervision to make other aspects of your school and/or district more democratic? Assessment In your discussions, you’ll want to assess the project. Use the standards listed and judge how you’ve done against them, individually and collectively. Use them in both a formative and a summative fashion; that is, how can we get better and should we completely stop what we’re doing and concentrate on something else? Take the second standard as an example. The standard encourages more self-directed individuals and collectivities through democratic supervision. Ask yourself, either formally or informally, did this occur as a result of your democratic supervision efforts? If so; how? What evidence do you have that this occurred? If not, what can be done to improve the outcome? First, each member should answer these questions for themselves. Next, the group members should come together to share their individual answers to the questions and discuss the group response or assessment of the activities. Then it’s time to cycle back: Are your aims still valid (that is, are you still committed to fostering democratic supervision)? If so, should you continue or alter some aspect of the project, as mentioned above? Allow for divergence and allow time for these efforts to take root. Most of all, celebrate your successes, both large and small. Reference Pajak, E. (2000). Approaches to clinical supervision. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon. Back to Standard Propose New Activity Comments Please include your name, organization and the number and letter of the professional development activity with your comments.
	The Standards for Instructional Supervision