Week 11: Pedagogical Skills
Burns and Badiali (2013) did a great job in shedding the light onto the supervisory pedagogical skills. Actually, I feel that I read their work exactly at the perfect time. This week, I had two observations and found the article speaking to me by addressing many issues I have experienced recently. I appreciate the simple language used and the examples given. Moreover, it was very helpful to see many pieces of the literature of our course connected in a meaningful way as how it is in the introduction.
When it comes to teaching about teaching, I totally agree with our authors that it is vital to build an understanding of the skill sets needed if we are to move forward with teacher preparation. The six pedagogical skills found in this particular study are interconnected in such a way and are woven around the critical incidents that are part of the daily complexity of teaching. It isn’t surprising to see that “noticing” is more than a skill, it is the base for other skills such as pointing and ignoring. During every observation I find myself challenged and engaged in a reflective dialogue with myself, similar to what Schon (1983) called reflection in-action, regarding where to direct my attention as the observer in a specific setting at a specific time. There are different things that are happening at the same time, e.g the teacher is teaching, students are working or listening, the cooperating teacher is co-teaching or moving around, and etc. Reflection is healthy, however, when not happening at the right time, it might not just be ineffective but could also be frustrating. Thus, this time, for this week’s pop in observations, I decided in advance to focus on children during the lesson because I realized that I haven’t given them the same attention I was giving to their teacher during the past observations. It is important here to note that this is separate from what I do in almost every observation where I allocate part of the attention to be on what the intern has asked me to focus on and an example could be today’s observation when the intern wanted me to focus on her use of time during the math lesson.
What I was reflecting on is beyond this specific aspect, time, that is pre-selected by the student to include the other aspects which might need equal attention or even more like what happened today. Again, I decided to focus on children besides focusing on time so I prepared two sheets. I used the first one to draw a graph of teacher’s use of time while used the second one to write my observational notes. There were many things to notice and among them all, there was a one “critical incident” that ended up being the focus of our post conference. This incident was about a student who answered the first question early and finished the second one as well while the teacher was still walking around to help other students with the first question. I noted the student’s words that she said with a sad and surprised voice when asked the teacher to look at her response for question two, “still question one! I thought we’re at two now!” and went to her desk waiting 5 more minutes for the class to move to the next question which she has already finished. With all the pain in my heart for this student, I felt good to have a good point like this to share with the intern and invite her to reflect on the lesson and the differentiated strategies she has or has not used.
In the post conference, what I did is stating what I noticed to the intern without any impressions or interpretations and inviting the intern to share her thoughts. This was a great start to a reflective dialogue. Reading Burns and Badiali (2013) prior to the observation was helpful. I found myself incorporating the lesson plan, teacher’s work, in the reflective dialogue we had to not just make a physical marking but to also point to things that might deepen the intern’s reflection on her practice regarding a specific topic, which was the differentiated math lesson.
This takes me to the next point I was so connected with and that is “disclosure”. It reminds me of our class conversations and discussions around building rapport and trust relationships with the interns. Disclosure, to me, could be a two-sided sword (hope I’m using the right metaphor). In one way, it is needed to make sure that both the supervisor and the intern are on the same page in terms of what’s being noticed and which might ultimately lead to some specific actions, future plans, and etc. When not acknowledged about such observed incidents, things could be problematic and the supervisory process might be perceived in a negative way. However, in another way, disclosure might also be a source of tension if the intern/teacher is not ready yet to recieve notes about practices or work that needs improvement. Last semester, in an attempt to prepare myself for this new role, I have observed some colleagues in their post conferences and have noticed that a couple of the interns were not happy by the disclosed incidents marked and pointed by their advisor. This made me wonder about the interns’ level of readiness to be part of this process. Also, I started to think about “disclosure” in terms of the amount and style. Sometimes I feel hesitant by when/what incident should I make transparent and this is pretty much related to ignoring as I filter the incidents considering different factors in the decision-making. At the same time, I believe that the style of communication used with the intern plays a significance role in how would they perceive the things being disclosed. Criticism and judgment might affect the beneficial aspect of disclosing the critical incidents with teachers.
Finally, I am so amazed by the amount of data collected in this study by Burns and Badiali (2013). I would love to hear more about the methodology and analysis processes. Moreover, some of the examples provided were collected from sources other than the interviews, such as documents and reflective journals. It made me reflect on my own inquiry data sources, where I am gladly incorporating videos and reflective journals, and think about the extent to which these would be insightful and helpful. I am so passionate about exploring my own identity. The videos I am collecting would be a great source for me to analyze my practice. On the other hand, being able to analyze my reflections on these observed practices, reading what I’ve said and how I reacted, would enable me to see other aspects of the to be revealed identity.
References
Burns, R. W., & Badiali, B. (2013). Identifying pedagogical skills of supervisors: Unearthing
the intricacies and complexities of learning to supervise. Paper presented at the annual
meeting of the council of Professors of Instructional Supervision in State College, PA:
The Penn State University.
