1. Concepts and Theories of
Supervision and Reflection
By: Austin Frattali

2. Clinical Supervision
 Pre-observation Conference
 The purpose of this conference is to gather information related to the teacher’s lesson plan, procedures, and assessments and to
develop an agreement or contract between the supervisor and teacher for expediting the plan.
 Pre-observation questions/guidelines:
 1.In what areas do you need help?
 2.Are there areas that you want me to observe?
 3.Specifically, what would you like to share?
 4.Is there a particular student(s) you want me to observe?
 5.What are your goals and outcomes for the lesson?
 6.What evidence-based strategies are you implementing? Why?
 7.The length of time for the observation will be _______?
 8.The post-observation conference will be on _________?
 The Observation
 The purpose of the observation is to observe the lesson outlined in the pre-observation conference and to gather data and information
that may be used to advance knowledge, skills, and dispositions of the teacher.

 Data Analysis
 During this stage the supervisor complies, sorts, and organizes the data collected into a usable format. Data from the observation
provide a framework and content for the post-observation conference.
 Post-conference Analysis
 This stage gives the supervisor time to assess aspects of the clinical supervision process. The supervisor determines whether or not
the teacher understands and agrees with the follow-up and improvement targets. The observer can also evaluate his/her own
performance during the clinical conference process.

3. Clinical Supervision (Cont.)
 The Post-observation Conference (Supervisory Conference)
 The post-observation conference is for the purpose of examining
what occurred during the lesson, targeting areas for improvement or
enrichment, and developing an action plan for continuous
improvement performance. Typically, this conference should be
conducted at least a day or more, but not more than a week, after the
observation. This conference should be videotaped.
 Post-observation questions:
 1.Identify ways in which you think the lesson was successful and
unsuccessful.
 2.What role did the students play in making you think the lesson was
effective or ineffective?
 3.Highlight the evidence-based strategies you used.
 4.Compare what happened with what you anticipated would happen?
 5.Why do you think the lesson outcomes occurred?

4. What Does Reflection Really Mean?
 Reflective practice is "the capacity to reflect on
action so as to engage in a process of continuous
learning“.
 According to one definition it involves "paying critical
attention to the practical values and theories which
inform everyday actions, by examining practice
reflectively and reflexively. This leads to
developmental insight".

5. Personal Development through Reflection
 Reflective practice can be an important tool in
practice-based professional learning settings where
individuals learning from their own professional
experiences, rather than from formal teaching or
knowledge transfer, may be the most important
source of personal professional development and
improvement.
 Ex. Student Teaching

6. Personal Development through Refection
“(cont.)”
 What is important about reflection throughout your
practice is that you are not just looking back on past
actions and events, but rather you are taking a
conscious look at the emotions, experiences,
actions, and responses, and using that to add to
your existing knowledge base to draw out new
knowledge, meaning and have a higher level of
understanding

7. Kolb 1975
 Kolb was highly influenced by the research conducted by Dewey and Piaget
in the 1970s. Kolb’s reflective model highlights the concept of experiential
learning and is centered around the transformation of information into
knowledge. This takes place after the situation has occurred and entails a
practitioner reflecting on the experience, gaining a general understanding of
the concepts encountered during the experience and then testing these
general understandings on a new situation. In this way the knowledge that is
gained from a situation is continuously applied and reapplied building on a
practitioners prior experiences and knowledge.

8. Gibbs 1988
Graham Gibbs discussed the use of structured debriefing to facilitate the reflection involved in Kolb's "experiential
learning cycle". He presents the stages of a full structured debriefing as follows:
 (Initial experience)
 Description:
 "What happened? Don't make judgments yet or try to draw conclusions; simply describe."
 Feelings:
 "What were your reactions and feelings? Again don't move on to analyzing these yet."
 Evaluation:
 "What was good or bad about the experience? Make value judgments."
 Analysis:
 "What sense can you make of the situation? Bring in ideas from outside the experience to help you."
 "What was really going on?"
 "Were different people's experiences similar or different in important ways?"
 Conclusions (general):
 "What can be concluded, in a general sense, from these experiences and the analyses you have undertaken?"
 Conclusions (specific):
 "What can be concluded about your own specific, unique, personal situation or way of working?"
 Personal action plans:
 "What are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time?"
 "What steps are you going to take on the basis of what you have learnt?"

9. Gibbs 1988

10. Applying the Gibbs Cycle
 It is extremely important to reflect right after your teaching experience. Take time to sit
down and recall everything that you can remember, asking yourself all the questions
related to the model of Reflection you are using.
 What happened?
 "What was good or bad about the experience?
 "What was really going on?"
 "Were different people's experiences similar or different in important ways?"
 "What can be concluded, in a general sense, from these experiences and the analyses you
have undertaken?"
 "What can be concluded about your own specific, unique, personal situation or way of
working?"
 “What are you going to do differently in this type of situation next time?“
 "What steps are you going to take on the basis of what you have learnt?“
 The closer you reflect on these questions to the time that you taught the lesson, the
more effective it will be.
 As a practitioner it is easy to be too conscious of the things that didn’t go well. Don’t
be too hard on yourself! The Evaluation phase makes you think about the positive as
well as areas for improvement.
 Ask your supervisor, supporting teacher, or even the students themselves for
comments and opinions on your lesson might prove to be helpful as well. They can
provide with you with a more unbiased opinion on your teaching than you probably
could yourself.

11. Sources
 Kolb, Alice Y.; Kolb, David A. (2005). "Learning Styles and Learning Spaces:
Enhancing Experiential Learning in Higher Education". Academy of
Management Learning & Education. pg 193–212.
 Sheilds R.W., D. Aaron, and S. Wall (2001), What is Kolb's model of
experiential education, and where does it come from?, Questions and
Answers on Adult Education, The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education,
University of Toronto. Web-page accessed 29 November 2010.
 Gibbs G. Learning by Doing: A Guide to Teaching and Learning Methods
[monograph online]. Reproduced by the Geography Discipline Network;
2001.
 Gibbs, G. (1988) Learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning
methods, Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development, Oxford
Polytechnic. London: Further Education Unit.
 "Clinical Supervision: A Formative Process." Clinical Supervision: A
Formative Process. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 June 2014.