Introduction
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. In order to achieve high standards of education in a country, the utmost aim of schools therefore should be to improve the quality of teaching and learning (Usman, 2015). Fullan, Rincon-Gallardo and Hargreaves (2015) posit that this can only be achieved through an
The principal’s role as a supervisor of curriculum instruction cannot therefore be underestimated. The idea and application of supervision of instruction has undergone evolution over the years (Glickman, Gordon and Ross-Gordon, 2014). 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 instructions and failure to follow those instructions would lead to dismissal (Glanz, 2018). Similarly, Mette et al (2017) assert that the main intention of instructional supervision is neither to judge teachers’ competency level nor to make the supervisor be in command, but rather to help supervisors and teachers to work co-operatively for the good of the school. Today, supervision is seen as a two-way undertaking in which supervisors and supervisees dialogue with an intention of improving instruction which logically should be geared towards improving student learning and success in school (Zepeda, 2015).
In order to attain the goals of supervision, supervisors commonly give advice, assist and support the teachers (Kalule and Bouchamma, 2014). Nolan and Hoover (2011) contend that, in both supervision and staff development the center of attention is the teacher effectiveness in teaching. Both processes aim at improving teachers’ instructional practices in a collaborative and judgment free environment. Although the terms assessment, ranking, evaluation, and appraisal are all used together to describe supervisors’ role, they do not precisely reflect the process of instructional supervision.
The teacher must be the cause of all the efforts to enhance high standards in classroom instruction (Isa and Jailani, 2014). The quality of schools in a nation therefore depends on the high standards of training given to teachers. Students learn what is directly related to how and what teachers teach which highly depends on the skills and the knowledge they have gained through continuous learning and practice (Fullan et al., 2015). Instructional supervision is therefore an essential tool in staff development (Watson and Supovitz, 2008). According to Glickman, Gordon and Ross-Gordon (2017), a long-term objective of supervision is to develop teachers professionally towards a point where the teachers, coached by supervisors, can take complete charge of instructional enhancement.
Specifically, teachers are the most influential persons in the classroom that served as instruments in imparting knowledge to the learners and implementing educational reforms. Therefore, it is necessary that they are competent enough in sharing their expertise, responsible in molding and nurturing the learners, model of truth and proper values, and have great impact in the total development of learners mentally, physically, emotionally, socially and spiritually. Teachers are the key persons in the classroom, so they must be aware of what are expected of them and be guided by the proper guidelines during the conduct of instructional supervision particularly in instructing the learners who are supposed to learn in each discipline, classroom management, pedagogy and delivery of the lesson, assessment for evaluation of the learners which are all factors for the improvement of the teaching and learning process and the total development of teachers as a whole.
Over a long period of time, supervision had been practiced in all public schools to monitor the teachers’ performances and progress in teaching. The role of the teacher was to impart to the learners the knowledge and skills based on the competencies in each grade level. In this way, they are monitored by the administrators through instructional supervision. Many teachers were afraid to ask supervisors for help or to seek collegial assistance for fear that doing so would expose weaknesses in their teaching, which could be reflected later in low evaluations and possible punitive actions. This time, supervision as an evaluation tool reduced the possibility of nurturing collegiality, collaboration, and reflective practice, a more democratic and professional process, involving multiple skills that are equally available to teachers and supervisors. This new supervision embraces different configurations of teachers as colleagues working together to increase the understanding of their practice.
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 about 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 practice teaching.
In the new IPCRF, it is stated that one of the master teacher ‘s duties and responsibilities is to conduct instructional supervision with the assigned teachers at least four (4 ) times in a month using the necessary instructional supervisory tools such as the pre and post conferences’ forms and the teachers’ observation tools wherein the expected teacher’s performance in the delivery of the lessons are observed according to classroom management, content , pedagogy/ delivery, assessment / evaluation and the teacher’s quality during the observation proper.
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