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Monday, June 29, 2009

What is the Difference Between a Supervisor and a Mentor?


In this section of the blog we are discussing “clinical supervision”. Heretofore, the persons responsible for clinical supervision in a Jewish school were the principal, the school director, or a designated supervisor, (i.e. not the mentor teacher). They (i.e. the principal, school director, or supervisor) use the clinical supervision model with the three-step conference cycle to provide teachers/mentees with formative and summative feedback. Formative feedback is the specific technical, corrective, constructive positive, and constructive negative information that the observer gives the pre-service or in-service teacher. Formative feedback is only concerned with providing the teacher with assessment data to improve his or her professional practice. It is not given to determine the future status of the pre-service or in-service teacher. That is, whether (a) the pre-service teacher will be certified, or (b) the in-service teacher will be rehired, conditionally rehired, promoted, or terminated. Summative feedback, on the other hand, is the final assessment of the mentee's professional growth as a pre-service or in-service teacher. It is used to determine whether the pre-service teacher will be certified, or the in-service teacher will be rehired or promoted. The principal, school director, or supervisor gives both formative and summative feedback to in-service teachers. The mentor teacher, on the other hand, only provides formative feedback to in-service teachers, but both formative and summative feedback to pre-service teachers.

On the next post we will be introducing four approaches to mentoring teachers according to Carl D. Glickman.

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Richard D. Solomon's Blog on Mentoring Jewish Students and Teachers

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