Blog Reflection 3

I recently sat in on an interview for a candidate that would join my team this coming year. I am a technology teacher and the candidate would also teach technology courses; our new principal wanted me there to help ask content related questions that the administrators did not know much about. It was a great opportunity, but it did make me wonder how I would go about observing teachers, especially if I did not know much about the content myself which is a possibility, especially at the secondary level.
With an inexperienced teacher, I believe there should be a significant amount of supervision divided up among administrators, teacher mentor(s) and team members. Many new teachers I think feel comfortable with the content but struggle with classroom management or the art of teaching the material. Also, many new teachers struggle with adapting to the amount of paperwork such as grades, lesson plans, attendance, etc… that they were not expecting. New teachers need assistance in many of these areas as well as encouragement from time to time.
If I were supervising an experienced teacher, my role would be different. Hopefully, they would be strong in the art of teaching and very capable in their content area. In this situation, we would be moving from good to great. I would encourage the teacher to think of their weaknesses and really analyze areas to help them take it to the next level. There should always be walk-throughs to help hold all teachers accountable.
When a teacher changes their content area, whether by a similar subject or completely different, they should still be assisted. If it is a minor change, hopefully connecting them with people in their team or through workshops/conferences they will be able to grow in that area. If it is a major content change, they will probably need more assistance. The bright side is they will hopefully already understand the administrative and classroom management aspects of teaching.
As an administrator observing an experienced teacher in a new content area, you would have to take the new subject matter into account. Some of the other things that did not change should not have leeway, but in the actual teaching areas I think there should be a little more forgiveness at first.