Unearthing the Complexities of Clinical Pedagogy in Supervision: Identifying the Pedagogical Skills of Supervisors

Instructional supervision is a highly complex endeavor as supervisors work to enhance teacher, teacher candidate, and school effectiveness. The process of learning to supervise well can be daunting and difficult. Recent research on teaching has focused on enhancing teachers’ ability to notice or observe aspects of teaching and student learning. The ability to assist teacher candidates to “notice” and observe is equally important when supervising them. This qualitative case study builds upon the research on teaching and on supervision. It illustrates that “noticing” is one of a constellation of pedagogical skills supervisors use to support the learning of others. In addition, the authors identify six other pedagogical skills including ignoring, marking, intervening, pointing, unpacking, and processing. Further defining these skills is useful for understanding the intricacies of clinical pedagogy in instructional supervision. The results of this study suggest that supervision in clinically rich contexts is a pedagogical or teaching function which extends beyond traditional conceptions of observation and feedback.