ABSTRACT
In a school’s instructional program, which should improve students’ performances and enhance teachers’ professional development, the role of the instructional leaders cannot be underestimated. Supervision had been practiced in all public schools to monitor the teachers’ performances and progress in teaching. A variety of persons may be involved in improving teaching –learning situation, classroom management and providing quality instruction. The supervisors, principals and master teachers are in a unique position to nurture and develop the performance of the teachers and to realize the school’s vision and mission in providing quality education. So, there must be collaborative efforts of the persons involved in the supervisory process.
For so many years, the field of instructional supervision has been suffering from unstable relations between teachers and observers. At school level, how observers should professionally support while working with teachers was the discussion in the field of instructional supervision and was a main drive for developing the different supervision models because different models produced different practices and styles.
The aim was to increase for the best method by which observers could best improve the teachers’ performance, provide them with the needed assistance; for the total school improvement and providing quality education for the learners. Hence, the main purpose of instructional supervision is providing support for teachers and enhances their roles as key professional decision makers in the field.
In the 19th century, supervisors would set strict requirements for the teachers and visit them while in classrooms to ensure that they complied with the set of instructions during instructional supervision and failure to follow those instructions would lead to dismissal (Glanz, 2018). Similarly, Mette et al (2017) asserted that the main intention of instructional supervision is neither to judge education nor play an indispensable role as a catalyst in the development of any nation. The development of human potential primarily through the education system contributes largely to the formation of creative persons of good morals able to deal with problems of national development (Nasibulina, 2015). Schools have therefore been hailed to be the most active, suitable and central places where formal education can be accessed and sustained. To maintain these situations, the educators need to give quality service to learners by being dynamic, effective and efficient teachers in delivering competencies and skills required in all disciplines.
But in this new era, supervision encompasses varied configurations of instructional leaders and teachers working collaboratively to append the quality of classroom instruction. One of the challenges in the academe is improving the teaching performance of beginning, proficient, and highly proficient teachers to become distinguished teachers.
Beginning teachers find their first few years of teaching as the most difficult stage in their profession. Entrance into the teaching profession is marked by an initial period of challenges and opportunities due to adjustment with the colleagues, lack of time for more systematic planning, preparation for quality teaching and lack of courage in facing the challenges in the profession. Educational leaders in schools must perform their roles religiously and must be supportive, approachable, and willing to help the beginning teachers in solving the problems that they encountered.
Beginning teachers must face all the challenges that came out in the instructional supervision. They must have positive outlook in life and must meet the challenges with perseverance, hard work, dedication, strong will and quality assistance from experienced teachers and administrators who are willing to provide and give technical assistance and recognize extensive support for them during the first or second year of their teaching career. Teachers differ in their preferences and choices for supervision. There are teachers who would like to be left alone to do their jobs, other teachers would appreciate comments about their teaching. Beginning teachers can also be characterized in terms of their preferences for certain kinds of supervisory practices. There is a general agreement that most beginning teachers require the intensive assistance of clinical supervision. To improve teachers’ performances in teaching, the supervisors and instructional leaders must be aware with the appropriate supervisory approaches during instructional supervision.
Professionalism of beginning teachers depends on how their particular needs are satisfied. It is the purpose of administrators as supervisors to provide necessary and effective models of supervisory practices for professional development. Teachers need to have a choice among supervisory styles needed for their academic growth. Thus, personal and professional development is the outcome of effective supervision.
The idea to establish the relationship of the leaders’ instructional supervisory function include specifically the classroom observation, the mentoring and coaching activities to classroom teachers in connection with the practices, styles and school performance. These are important to the school and instructional leaders to have a solid leadership to guide, mentor and coach them in achieving a globally competitive skills and knowledge. Maximizing the full potentials of school resources to bring high quality education which can be compared to international standards. Every small detail that affects the quality of education should be attended to because it could be the determining factor on the success, development and improvement of a particular group or institution.
Teachers being the key persons in the classroom, must be aware of what are expected of them and be guided by the proper guidelines during the conduct of instructional supervision. They must be knowledgeable in delivering the lesson, instructing the learners, classroom management, use of ICT and HOTS questions, application of varied strategies to the different kinds of learners and others.
In line with this, the supervisory practices, styles combined with other variables have significant effects on classroom management and teacher’s performance. The curiosity challenged the researcher to conduct a study on Matrix on Instructional Supervision in Public Elementary Schools in Area 1, Batangas Province with the end result of proposing matrix for instructional supervisory approaches. The data will serve as basis for the designed matrix for instructional supervisory approaches that will address the problems and issues encountered by the teachers in different career stages during classroom observation or instructional supervision
METHODOLOGY
Research design was descriptive with the use of a researcher-constructed questionnaire as data gathering instrument. The researcher virtually prepared and administered the questionnaire via google forms to the different school heads and master teachers in the Area 1, Division of Batangas.
Respondents were informed of the purpose of the study and the need for their honest and objective participation. The researcher retrieved the questionnaires from the respondents soon after they had finished answering the instrument. After all the data were tallied and well accounted for, these were subjected to statistical treatment with the help of the statistician. Weighted mean was the statistical tool used for a meaningful interpretation and analysis of the study.
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