Cogan Overview of Clinical Supervision

Cogan, M. (1973). Clinical supervision. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Chapter 1: Overview of Clinical Supervision

• Educational Reforms and Clinical Supervision (CS)
  • The author's rebuttal regarding the cost of effective CS: "But could anything be as expensive as the wasteful and ineffective teaching so many schools are now paying for (p. 5)?"
  • Teachers need in-class support to further their professional growth and knowledge. CS is a viable in-class support for both experienced and future teachers.
  • Regarding properly preparing supervisors: "The educational systems of the United States can afford to prepare adequate numbers of clinical supervisors. If the nation does in fact commit itself to this task, it may be taking a small but important step toward the improvement of schooling, the facilitation of educational reform, and the defusing of at least some of the recurrent crises in education (p. 6)."

• Beginnings of Clinical Supervision
  • Cogan developed CS as a result of being frustrated when helping Masters candidates. He received feedback that their practice was inefficient and ineffective.

• Definitions of General and Clinical Supervision
  • "In brief, clinical was designed both to denote and connote the salient operational and empirical aspects of supervision in the classroom (p. 9)."
  • General Supervision vs. Clinical Supervision

• The Cycle of Supervision and Its Phases
  • Phase 1: Establishing the teacher-supervisor relationship
  • Phase 2: Planning with the teacher
  • Phase 3: Planning the strategy of observation
  • Phase 4: Observing instruction
  • Phase 5: Analyzing the teaching-learning processes
  • Phase 6: Planning the strategy of the conference
  • Phase 7: The conference
  • Phase 8: Renewed planning