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In your unit readings for this week, Kadushin and Harkness describe six principles of learning. After reading them, identify which one resonates with you. Explain why. Propose an example of a situation in supervision and describe how the principle you chose could be used in the example.
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to be taught, is highly motivated to teach it, has a high level of teaching skills, is capable of designing an effective learning program, is enthusiastic about his subject, and has respect for and confidence in his learners. The neces- sary knowledge base required for good educa- tional supervision is not confined to the subject matter of content to be taught. It extends as well to necessary knowledge about teaching tech- niques, knowledge about the student who is the learner, and knowledge of the teacher about himself or herself.
Our interest is in how learners learn. The supervisor needs to be aware of some of the factors that facilitate learning and know some- thing about techniques that maximize it. In this section, we outline some general principles of learning and some techniques derived from these principles that are applicable to the super- visory conference.
Principle 1: People Learn Best If They Are Highly Motivated to Learn In applying this principle, the supervisor can use the following techniques.
1. Explain the Usefulness of the Content to Be Taught The supervisor owes workers some explanation as to why it might be important for them to know the material if they are to dis- charge his professional responsibilities effec- tively. Motivation increases as usefulness of the content becomes clear. The new worker may not appreciate the importance, for instance, of learning effective referral procedures. If the supervisor can show, by citing the relevant
Conditions for Effective Teaching and Learning: Introduction In implementing the responsibilities of admin- istrative supervision, the supervisor acts as a manager. In implementing the responsibili- ties of educational supervision, the supervi- sor acts as a teacher. The previous chapter was concerned with what the supervisor teaches. The present chapter is concerned with how the supervisor teaches to catalyze learning. It is further concerned with some of the problems in implementing the process of educational supervision.
The supervisor’s principal responsibility in educational supervision is to teach the worker how to do the job. Our task here is to delineate what promotes effective teaching and learn- ing. The teacher can organize content, provide a suitable atmosphere for learning, and make learning available; however, the teacher cannot ensure its acceptance and certainly not its use— only the learner can do that. Teaching is essen- tially the art of assisting another to learn. As Robinson (1936:128) said, “Teaching provides the subject matter, the stimulus, the materials, sets the tasks and defines the conditions. But learning is the process of utilizing opportunity and limits in one’s way for one’s own ends.” Learning is a creative personal experience.
The supervisor, in implementing educational supervision, has the responsibility of knowing the content that needs to be learned, of know- ing how to teach it effectively, and for creating, sustaining, and managing an interpersonal environment that facilitates learning. The good teacher has expert knowledge of the content
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principles and problems in Implementing Educational Supervision
C o p y r i g h t 2 0 1 4 . C o l u m b i a U n i v e r s i t y P r e s s .
A l l r i g h t s r e s e r v e d . M a y n o t b e r e p r o d u c e d i n a n y f o r m w i t h o u t p e r m i s s i o n f r o m t h e p u b l i s h e r , e x c e p t f a i r u s e s p e r m i t t e d u n d e r U . S . o r a p p l i c a b l e c o p y r i g h t l a w .
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worker may be right, in which case the supervi- sor has nothing to teach him or her.
If the supervisor, however, is convinced that the worker’s perception of his performance is wrong and that there is much the worker needs to learn, the supervisor would first have to stimulate dissatisfaction with the worker’s per- formance. The supervisor may want to confront the worker with the gap between what he or she is doing and what he or she can do, needs to be done, or wants to be able to do. Dissatisfac- tion with current performance is a necessary prerequisite before the worker is ready to learn new and better ways of working with the client. The worker is more likely to be motivated when he or she is somewhat uneasy (Stoltenberg and McNeill 1997).
Consequently, the supervisor should make a deliberate but compassionate effort to create some desire for, or curiosity about, the learning he or she has to offer. Rather than being passive in the face of lack of motivation, the supervisor acts as a catalyst for change, creating tension that needs to be resolved. The worker’s equi- librium needs to be disturbed if receptivity to learning is to be stimulated.
At times, the “supervisor must awaken anxiety by penetrating the rationalization and defenses that bind it. If the supervisor avoids conflict for purposes of keeping the supervisory relationship untroubled and outwardly smooth, he will have abdicated his responsibility to the supervisee and will have compromised his trustworthiness” (Mueller and Kell 1972:30–31).
Motivation for learning follows the general principle that all behavior is purposive. People learn only when they want to learn or when they feel a need to learn. Although this justi- fies stimulation of a need, such a procedure may be unnecessary. The first assumption about an apparently unmotivated supervisee might well be that the supervisor is not sensitive enough to discern the motives that the worker has. It would initially be better to attempt to under- stand and use those motives that the learner himself brings to the situation. The supervisor
frequency, these factors are achievement (feel- ing pleased with something done in which one would take pride), recognition (good work was commented on and complimented), the work itself (the work was interesting, challeng- ing, varied), responsibility (freedom to do the work independently and autonomously), and advancement (the possibility of moving up to more responsible positions). These factors can be used to motivate learning (Weikel-Morrison 2002). For instance, there is greater possibility of meeting the need for achievement if the worker learns how to do the job more effectively; learn- ing to do the job increases the probability that the worker will be granted more responsibility and more opportunity to work independently; and learning to do the job enhances the pos- sibility of advancement.
Supervisors would do well to utilize any and all motives to optimize learning. If the worker wants a promotion or raise or a student wants a high grade, these motives can be tied to the need to learn the content as a requirement for achieving their goals.
Motivation increases receptivity to learn- ing and makes energy available for learning. It thus sets the stage for learning and provides the teachable moment, but it does not in itself make for learning. The supervisor has to take advantage of the teachable situation to teach something of significance. Motivation needs to be provided with a learning opportunity and direction. The supervisor provides guidance to the learning that motivation seeks.
4. Safeguard, Stimulate, and Instill Motivation Because motivation is of such crucial signifi- cance, the supervisor needs to safeguard and stimulate motivation where it exists and instill motivation where it does not. Motivation indi- cates a readiness for learning. A worker who lacks motivation to learn certain content may have no felt need for it. The worker is satisfied with what he or she is doing and in the way he or she is doing it. The worker has no problem that requires additional learning for its solution. The
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it was that I was supposed to be thinking about. (Herrick 1977:95)
Learning does not merely result in adding knowledge and skills to those already avail- able to the learner. Learning involves the risk of change in attitudes, values, and behavior as the new learning modifies the perception of the world and of people. The risk of change is anxi- ety provoking. People often fear what the con- sequences of change might be for them. If the supervisor is empathic in regard to the anxiety created by change resulting from learning and is supportive, there is less of a need to devote psychic energy to defend against change and to bind associated anxiety.
However, acceptance involves expectations. Psychological safety does not mean a permis- siveness that ignores the demand for adequate performance on the part of the worker. The supervisor must make firm demands on the worker for learning what he or she needs to learn. However, those demands should be made in a friendly way, out of a desire to help rather than to hurt. They do create tension. However, such tension is necessary to motivate the super- visee to learn.
The supervisor has to be consistently helpful to the supervisee rather than consistently popu- lar. This means challenging error, calling atten- tion to ignorance, and pointing to mistakes and deficiencies in performance. The supervisor has to offer a judicious balance between stimulus and support. The supervisor is responsible for maintaining the balance between a degree of tension that motivates and challenges and a degree of tension that immobilizes. The super- visor should use the tension that derives not from the fear of failure but from the discrep- ancy between what the worker knows and what he wants to know. It involves making demands with the utmost possible respect, compassion, and understanding. It would be foolish to pre- tend that balancing these contradictory and vaguely defined variables is anything but the most difficult of tasks.
ignorance will devote psychic energy to defense against such anticipated attacks. The supervi- sor should be the supervisee’s mentor rather than tormentor. An atmosphere of acceptance permits a freer involvement in risk-taking and a greater psychic concentration on learning rather than on self-defense. Learning takes place best in an interaction that permits, if it does not condone, mistakes and recognizes the ambiguity and indefiniteness of the available answers.
The effects of the supervisor’s attitude of acceptance on the worker’s performance were described by a worker:
I didn’t feel that I was getting criticized for what I was doing. So a lot of my feelings of anxiety and discomfort began to dissipate as I was not getting criticism from him: therefore, I wasn’t criticiz- ing myself—as harshly anyway. And I was feel- ing more comfortable. As I began to feel more comfortable—the more comfortable I felt, it’s like the more ready I was to take that more critical look at what I had done. The more sure I felt that I wasn’t a complete asshole, that I wasn’t blowing it right and left, that I was OK in the room—I wasn’t going to permanently damage anybody or any of that—and that the person I was presenting was really myself and not something that I was trying to do for my absent supervisor, the more ready I became to ask questions of myself and what I was doing in technique and all that. It wasn’t laden with all the feelings and all the anxiety and all that. (Herrick 1977:136)
The impact on the supervisee of a supervi- sor who communicates nonacceptance was described by a supervisee:
I would just get angrier and angrier inside and I would get tighter and tighter and more closed, and whatever it was that we were supposed to be talking about around my client no longer became important because the dynamics that were going on between the two of us were so heavy that I couldn’t even think about whatever
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she cannot trust the supervisor’s judgment. It is therefore important to commend only what can be defended as objectively praiseworthy. The supervisor should be specific about the behavior that has elicited approval—not using a general statement such as, “You really indi- cated your understanding of Mr. P.’s behavior,” but rather a specific statement such as, “You really indicated your understanding of Mr. P.’s behavior when you said . . . in response to his comment about. . . .” Such specificity not only ensures that learning is attended by positive sat- isfactions because it is being rewarded but also makes conscious and explicit the behavior that the supervisor hopes to reinforce.
Pleasure and pain—reward and punishment— overlap with the question of motivation in learning. People are motivated to learn so that they can avoid the pain that comes from an inability to deal successfully with problems in job performance. They are motivated to learn so as to feel the pleasure of doing a job compe- tently and effectively, to avoid the punishment of being dependent, and to obtain the reward of acting autonomously. People are motivated to learn so that they can avoid the pain of criti- cism and guilt and be rewarded with praise and approbation from themselves and from “significant others,” including the supervisor. People are motivated to learn to avoid the dis- satisfaction that comes from the uncertainty of not clearly knowing what they are supposed to be doing or how to do it. Also, people are moti- vated to learn in order to feel the satisfaction in the security that comes from knowing, with assurance, what it is all about.
3. Praise Through Positive Feedback Such reinforcement is most effective if offered while the learning situation to which it applies is still fresh and vivid. This fact emphasizes the importance of regularly scheduled conferences at reasonably frequent intervals (once a week perhaps) so that the supervisor can offer his critical reaction to recently encountered expe- riences in which learning has been applied by
Principle 3: People Learn Best When Learning Is Successful and Rewarding These techniques help the worker repeat what is satisfying and avoid repeating what is painful.
1. Balance the Skills of the Worker and the Challenges of Practice Set conditions of learn- ing so as to ensure a high probability of success by optimizing the balance between the skills of the worker and the challenges of practice (Csikszentmihalyi and Csikszentmihalyi 1988). Intrinsically rewarding each successful experi- ence in one’s practice reinforces the behavior associated with the successful experience.
It would be inadvisable to present the worker with a learning demand that is clearly beyond his or her capacity to meet. If there is little chance of success, there is little motivation to try. Learners needs some assurance that they can succeed if they are going to risk trying. On the other hand, the task needs to be sufficiently challenging to engage the worker’s interest and prompt the worker to extend himself or herself. If a task is too easy, one is not likely to experi- ence a feeling of success in achieving it. Select- ing a learning task that is challenging but not overwhelming is a neat trick. It is, admittedly, much easier to describe than to do—particu- larly without any gauge by which to measure how much challenge a worker can hope to meet successfully.
2. Praise Professional Accomplishments Supervisors can increase positive satisfactions in learning if they praise, where warranted, success in professional accomplishment. Praise is a psychic reward that reinforces the behavior that prompted the commendation. Indiscriminate praise is counterproductive, however. The supervisee is an adult capable of independent critical assessment of his or her own performance. If the supervisor praises a performance that he or she recognizes as sub- standard, the supervisor loses credibility in the worker’s eyes and subsequent assessments are discounted. The worker might feel that he or
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social-work learning situations. The client who is motivated to use the service, has good e
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