LENSES OF DIRECTIVE SUPERVISION

ABSTRACT

This study presents the different situations that equip the school principals with directive supervisory skills in enhancing the productivity, quality and morale of teachers who have the direct control of the recipients of education in the grass roots level.

This research applied sequential mixed method for the astute investigation of various situations in the school setting for the purpose of finding out, analyze and assess the directive supervision practiced by the principals towards teachers’ productivity, quality and morale, through employing statistics that calculate the extent how the school principal performs the tasks suited to directive supervision. This research also used metaphors to explain the perspective of the respondents in Directive Supervision. The views were explained as “Lenses of Directive Supervision”. These includes: hammer- supervision as a driving force, compass- supervision as directing, shepherd supervision as guiding and darts- supervision as targeting.

The findings revealed that time management and attendance are the top factors needed by the school principals in their directive supervision style of management towards teachers’ productivity, while as to teachers’ quality, individual duties and responsibilities, career advancement and research development plays a big role, finally as to teachers’ morale, teachers’ workload have a high impact on the directive supervision of principals. So, it is very evident that in order to make teachers productive with quality output and high morale, emphasis and considerations must be weighted to time management, attendance, individual duties and responsibilities, career advancement, research development and work loads of teachers.

The lenses of directive supervision through metaphorical statements contribute to a more meaningful understanding on how principals perform supervision towards his teachers.

Keywords: Directive supervision, principal, teachers, productivity, quality, morale, metaphors, lenses

INTRODUCTION

Supervision of teachers is an important part of both pre-service and in-service teacher education programs, and teacher educators have a wide choice of supervisory behaviors which they can use in the process of training (Ekyaw, 2014). In the light of producing quality products of high morale, consequently classroom manager should be properly trained and closely supervised and monitored by the school head. Whatever be the outcome of the instruction delivered by the teachers is the outcome of the supervision of the school head or principals. Further, supervisory skills of principals could lead teachers to move to the direction of becoming productive, and work with quality and high morale as an equipment in the educative process. Likewise, directive supervision (Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon (2014) as one of the approaches in differentiated supervision model is more structured and the supervision is directed by the supervisor, thus, the outcome is a supervisor’s assigned plan. Primarily, school principals must gear their innate skills in managing diverse teachers by applying all the theories and principles in administering and supervising teachers.

In terms of teachers’ quality performance, directive supervision (Rettig, Lampe & Garcia, 2000) is used when either the faculty member is very new and needs more directive guidance, or when the faculty member is struggling and needs close monitoring and/or guidance, which the supervisor should use supervisory behaviors as reinforcing, standardizing and directing. However, the notion of trust between supervisors and supervisees has been discussed (Henson, 2010; Nolan & Hoover, 2008; Zepeda, 2012, 2017), as it is said that, amazing things happen when you make people feel they are valued individuals because they are trusted to come up with the products aligned to the goals, vision and mission of the organization.

Notably, fluent principals in all aspects who is of high regard of their subordinates most specially of their teachers earned trust, thus influenced teachers to perform very well as expected of them by their supervisor, indeed redound to making themselves of high regard too both in quality and morale.

Noteworthy findings surfaced in discussion about how ineffective student teachers are supervised. First participants described remediation processes as compartmentalized and timeline driven. Description aligns with the directive approach, in which supervisors emphasized what must be achieved to reach proficiency, and the supervisory relationship is more autocratic than collaborative (Glickman, 1990; Glickman et al., 2005; Zepeda, 2007, 2012). Principals who used the directive control approach with struggling novice teachers outline expectations for acceptable performance and use formal plans of remediation to document assistance (Rettig, Lampe & Garcia, 2000). This applies not only to novice teachers but also to practiced teachers, to maintain teachers’ performance to the maximum as expected of the school stakeholders towards producing quality products competitive in all walks of life in the diverse culture of the fast-improving society brought about by the fast evolution of highly technical industry, the very reason why directive supervision should be given strong emphasis by the school principals.

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