Intent and Rationale
The Handbook of Educational Supervision offers a view of the field of supervision as it has evolved to the present. We hope that, through this spotlight, the Handbook points the reader to the research, theory, and applications about supervision that have surfaced in the broader fields of educational leadership and teacher preparation to keep pace with what occurs in practice in preKâ12 schools in the United States. This handbook is important because much of what we know about supervision rests between its theory and its applications in schools and systems that have provided fertile ground for supervision as we know it today.
Ultimately, we hope that the reader will see that supervision as a field has not only evolved and endured in its intents and purposes, but has also grown from complexities and variances in practice and through contributions across other closely related fields of study that extend its theories and foundations. Getting to the point of creating a handbook was an arduous task given the time that elapsed from the watershed Handbook of Research on School Supervision, edited by Ed Pajak and Gerald Firth in 1998. To frame this Handbook, we examined research, theory, applications, and translations of supervision and intersections with other fields that support school improvement. This chapter establishes the intent and rationale of the handbook, explaining the purpose of the text and the why behind the purpose. An overview of the organization of the text, highlighting the sections and chapters is offered.
From our analysis of textbooks on supervision and leadership, along with conference presentations from such bodies such as the American Education Research Association, the University Council of Educational Administration, and the Council of Professors of Instructional Supervision (COPIS), exemplars emerged that showed how leadership broadly and finitely has incorporated and extended the purposes and intents of supervision, how the field of supervision has changed and moreover served as the foundation and legacy of theory, research, and practice. For these reasons and more, we believe the field of supervision, albeit fraught with tensions and controversies, has been foundational for practices, constructs, and further understandings in other fields.
The following are tensions that we identified in our analysis:
- Clinical supervision in the historical context vs. todayâs highâstakes accountability reality;
- Individual adult learning vs. professional community;
- Power and control vs. empowerment and trust;
- Beginning teacher clinical supervision vs. comprehensive induction systems;
- Observation vs. action research, portfolio development, etc.;
- Administrative feedback vs. peer coaching and collaboration;
- Motivation and compliance vs. reflection and cognitive development;
- Evaluation vs. professional development and jobâembedded learning;
- Individual problem solving vs. professional capacity building in schools;
- Individual teacher changes vs. school and system changes to improve the learning environment;
- Individual conferences vs. courageous conversation within a professional learning community.
Aims of the Handbook of Educational Supervision
The field of supervision in practice and in research has evolved to be much more inclusive and broadly constructed. The social, political, and historical contexts in which practices have emerged are vastâNo Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001 (2002), Race to the Top, Every Student Succeeds Act (2015), the emergence of digital learning environments, restructuring of schools (e.g., charter schools), the dramatic change in school demographics that create shifting communities of students and teachers, and advancements in fields such as adult learning and professional learning. These changes necessitate asking critical questions to frame the field of supervision for today and tomorrow. Hence, the primary aim of the Handbook is to examine the concepts, research, practices, and aims of supervision that are embedded broadly and finitely in and across leadership within PreKâ12 schools and their systems.
A secondary aim of the Handbook is to examine the theoretical constructs that have been drawn from the field of supervision that have been expanded upon in other fields. These theoretical constructs have served to deepen our understanding of the field (e.g., mentoring, coaching, learning communities) as practices have evolved to meet the needs of school personnel.
Another aim of the Handbook is to serve as a bridge to other fields of study that share the same intents, purposes, and tensions but that have pushed through to frame supervision as a construct for growth and development of personnel and impetus for school improvement.
Finally, this Handbook examines the conflicts inherent in the field of supervision, with intent to expand discussion within the field by including perspectives of leading scholars in closelyârelated fields in education such as leadership, the politics of education, teacher leadership, and so on.
Objectives of the Handbook
Complementing the aims of the Handbook are eight primary objectives:
- To draw attention to the critical aspects of supervision that have evolved across fields in leadership, policy, teacher preparation, and professional learning.
- To broaden the lens of supervision beyond what the supervisor does by showing how supervision has evolved to fit system changes and the leadership imperative to lead schools by building capacity.
- To connect the work, purposes, and intents of supervision as they evolved to support leadership needed for increased student learning amid the complexities of accountability.
- To illustrate how supervision has evolved to be a communal, collaborative, and proactive problemâsolving strategy shared by a community of learners whose purpose it is to improve outcomes for students.
- To focus on corollary fields of study and the research these fields have yielded to extend our notions of how people construct and reconstruct practices to learn from supervision.
- To provoke conversation across fields of study to bring into focus the conflicts that have propelled the field and examine how cohesion has been achieved through unique and constantly emerging permutations of supervision.
- To disseminate across fields insights into how, why, and in what ways supervision has evolved.
- To capture the voices, perspectives, and research from top scholars in fields that have stewarded supervision across many configurations.
The chapter authors allow us to see how the past has shaped the constructs that have evolved to add to the knowledge and theory of a relatively small field and to broaden constructs across disciplines.
No longer should the field of supervision be firmly nestled and entrenched in a silo because its foundationsâknowledge, theory, applications, and even inherent conflictsâpave the way for more current applications of its practices and more robust avenues for research and scholarship. By spanning fields of study, an increasing cadre of scholars have extended our thinking about the possibilities for educational supervision to evolve and transform to fit the complexities of schools and systems.
The field of educational supervision has been influenced by political entrenchment and folly at the state and federal levels and its focus on hyperâaccountability in the name of teacher quality and effectiveness. The field is in a prime position to look at its legacies with pride and, hopefully, to embrace how other fields of study and their scholars have contributed to the larger discussion, responding to the increasing sense of urgency to create coherence across efforts to support teacher and leader growth.
An Overview of the Organization of the Handbook and Its Sections
The Handbook of Educational Supervision is divided into five sections and 25 chapters: Section I: The Context of Supervision; Section II: The Intents of Supervision; Section III: The Processes of Supervision; Section IV: The Key PlayersâEnactors of Supervision; Section V: The Outcomes of Supervision.
Within the organization of each section are chapters that examine topical areas, constructs, and models that have shaped the field of educational supervision. The five sections are organized to lead the reader from the historical foundations of supervision to its aspirational outcomes.
Of special note is that we have had the pleasure of working with some of the most prominent scholars in the fields that have embraced supervision, people who have served as trailblazers in carrying forward the messages that have shaped and will continue to shape the field, and who have provided thoughtâprovoking scholarship within their chapters.
