Professional Development Levels of Teachers in Respect of Developmental Supervision Areas

The present research aimed to determine the professional development levels of teachers according to developmental supervision approach. Case study method from qualitative research methods was used in the data collection. Educators participated in the research state that the professional development areas of the teachers should be comprised of eight main areas. These areas defined by the educators are lesson preparation and planning, teaching-learning process (lesson), assessment and evaluation, professional development, communication, counselling, classroom management, projects and time management. Therefore, it can be indicated that the determined professional development areas of teacher should be prioritized in order to increase both educational quality and teacher performances.


Introduction
Problem Statement.Supervision process is consisted of three stages as the measurement of the performance, comparing the performance with a standard and doing an managerial activity to reduce variations.Being the last stage of the management process, supervision provides a critical connection to the planning.Supervision enables managers to figure out whether they have achieved their goals and plans and to discover the activities they need to carry out.Another reason that makes supervision important is recruitment.An effective supervision system provides information and feedback related to employee performance.It decreases the risk of problem occurance.Another reason for supervision is to protect the organization and its entity.Comprehensive supervisions and backup plans will minimise the work failure (Robbins, Decenzo, & Coulter, 2013).
Supervision is a management function which includes monitoring the activities and correcting the deviations in order to plan and complete the organizational activities.Managers cannot measure the performances of the units unless the activities are evaluated and the performance is compared with the desired standards.An effective supervision reveals oneself only when the goals are achieved.That is, the effectiveness of a supervision system is determined by its ability to facilitate the goal achievement process.A system efficacy depends on its service to help managers complete organizational goals.The most common supervision type relies on feedback.Feedback means providing direct and clear information about the performance according to the results of a task.Supervision that includes feedback has two superiorities.First, feedback provides meaningful information to managers about the effectiveness of their planning efforts.Feedback that reveals the little difference between the standards and current performance indicates that planning generally attains the goals.If the deviation is significant, the manager can benefit from this information while developing new plans.Second, feedback can increase the motivation.People want to know how good they do their jobs and feedback provides this kind of information (Robbins et al., 2013;Robbins & Judge, 2012).Feedback reflects the development demonstrated by the objectives and it reveals the difference between desired and current activities.Therefore it increases people's motivation.However, not all kinds of feedback is effective equally.Feedback that individuals obtains themselves is more effective than the feedback received from other people (Ivancevich & McMahon, 1982).Therefore, not each feedback is effective.Feedback that is produced by the individual is more effective than the one produced by the environment.Individuals produce feedback by monitoring themselves in accordance with the goals (Robbins & Judge, 2012).
Feedback is necessary to achieve the goals and make the goals beneficial because individuals get the chance to compare their performances with their goals in this way.Feedback should be given on the goals that are achieved.It helps organization members succeed in their objectives.Feedback is helpful in two ways.Firstly, it helps individuals determine how successful they are and encourages them.Secondly, it reveals the performance settings that are needed to be enhanced.For instance, a school carries out the item analysis of a compulsory achievement test and reduces the mishaps in the performance (Lunenburg ve Ornstein, 2013).In this way, people work harder when they obtain feedback related to their objectives.The reason is that feedback demonstrates differences between what they do and what they want to do and directs their behaviours (Robbins & Judge, 2012).
Teachers carry out many roles and tasks.The areas that they can be supervised increase accordingly.These supervision areas or what should be supervised should be determined carefully.In the supervision process, what should be supervised is more critical than how to supervise.The reason is that wrong criteria may result in nonfunctional points.Also the areas to be supervised determines the goals of the organization members.Supervision can be carried out before an activity starts, while an activity proceeds or after an activity is completed.As previously mentioned, supervision is a management function and it reveals whether the goals are achieved as planned.It ha different types.The first one is feedforward, the second is simultaneous supervision and the last one is called feedback supervision (Robbins et al., 2013).
Developmental supervision is one of the supervision approaches used in teacher supervision.According to developmental supervision approach, the supervisor is responsible for analyzing the developmental stage of the teacher and demonstrating a supervision behaviour suitable for that developmental stage (Aydın, 2014).Developmental supervision suggests that teachers demonstrate four development approaches as directive control approach, directive informing approach, cooperative approach and non-directive approach (Glickman, Gordon, & Ross-Gordon, 2014).Glickman et al. (2014) suggested that the main aspect of the developmental supervision is to provide a supervision according to developmental stage, expertise and commitment of an individual or a group.This is because teachers take part in different stages of adulthood and career development from the bottom up.Teachers in the lower developmental stage are generally considered suitable for directive control approach and directive informing approach.Because they experience difficulties in defining the problem and they do not take the responsibility to make decisions.Teachers who need instructions should be directed by giving suggestions.Teachers in the middle developmental stage can benefit from the cooperative supervision approach the most.This group of teachers can find solutions to certain teaching problems but they still need assistance to prepare a comprehensive teaching development plan and to review all of the alternatives.Teachers in the high developmental, expertise and commitment stage are generally ready for self-directed development arose from non-directive supervision approach.Therefore non-directive approach should be employed with this group of teachers.The stages of developmental supervision are determining the most appropriate starting stage, applying the determined approach and supporting teacher development while increasing the decision making responsibility gradually (Glickman et al., 2014).Developmental supervision is a very important approach in terms of determining teachers' main requirements and providing the most appropriate evaluation to their improvements.However, the most critical side of this approach is presenting the development stages of the teachers properly (Aydın, 2014).
In comparison with the feedback obtained from another person, feedback that is produced by the individual is more motivating and it facilitates personal improvement (Ivancevich & McMahon, 1982).Feedback produced by the employees enables them to monitor their developments and it is more effective than the feedback received from the environment.In this context, the data obtained from the teacher's self-evaluation can be easily used in developmental studies but these data may not be very beneficial in their decisions of work or promotion.Studies reveal that teacher's self-evaluation is very helpful in terms of evaluating the teacher's performance properly.If the teachers have self-evaluation skills and use them regularly in their professional lives, the supervision load of principals and leaders reduces and the self-control skills of the teachers are enhanced (Gümüşeli, 2014).There are many tools and techniques for teachers to evaluate themselves.A graded scoring key for the teachers' self-evaluation will be used in the present research for it will be more beneficial for teachers' personal development.
The aim of the research is to develop a graded scoring key for teachers to use in their self-evaluation to realise their developmental stages.This graded scoring key will be prepared to determine the criteria to be used in teacher performances, the scores of the performances, teachers' success types according to their scores and the stages that teachers need to reach.
The requirements of the model and the content of the theory were studied in detail.In this context, it is aimed to determine the professional development stages of the teachers in accordance with developmental supervision approach.The following items were studied accordingly: a) Teacher behaviours observed in directive control approach stage (samples), b) Criteria for teacher professional development in directive control approach stage (suggestions), c) Teacher behaviours observed in directive informing approach stage (samples), d) Criteria for teacher professional development in directive informing approach stage (suggestions), e) Teacher behaviours observed in cooperative approach stage (samples), f) Criteria for teacher professional development in cooperative approach stage (suggestions), g) Teacher behaviours observed in nondirective (self-directed) approach stage (samples), h) Criteria for teacher professional development in nondirective (self-directed) approach stage (suggestions).
Method.The research aims to demonstrate the current situation, therefore it is a descriptive research.Qualitative research method was applied in collecting the data.Qualitative research includes qualitative data collection tools such as observation, interview and document analysis.It constitutes a qualitative process of observing the case holistically in its natural environment.The most important contribution of these methods is that they provide different perspective to the issue and reveal the social structure that forms these perspectives (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2005).Semi-structured interview form was applied primarily in the research.Interview is a very powerful method which is used to determine people's perspectives, emotions, opinions, experiences and perceptions.At this point, the fact that some opinions of the participants are included in the research report is important in terms of transferring their perspectives directly (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2005).
Qualitative research terms as validity and reliability were considered dogmatical by the deductive understanding of the positivist paradigm, therefore terms as plausibility and transmissibility have been preferred recently (Corbin & Strauss, 2008;Yıldırım ve Şimşek, 2005).Accordingly, research process and operations were endeavoured to be explained in detail in order to increase the external validity (transmissibility) of the research.The findings were included directly without making ant interpretations in order to enhance the internal validity (consistency).
Purposeful sampling method was used in determining the study group.Purposeful sampling provides detailed examination of the situations which includes plenty of information (Büyüköztürk et al., 2012;Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2008).The research is based on voluntary participation of the teachers in different educational stages.Accordingly, graded scoring key was applied to 30 teachers who work in different educational stages (preschool, primary school, secondary school, high school and vocational high school) in Düzce in 2015-2016 academic year.The number of female and male teachers are equal and their professional experience ranks between three and twenty five years.The initials of the participant teachers were used in the research findings.
Data Collection Tool.Graded scoring key (rubric) method was used as the data collection tool in the research.The graded scoring key developed by Glickman et al. (2014) was utilized in the research.Graded scoring key is a scoring guide which includes performance defining criteria.This tool involves any criteria developed to score any study.There are many reasons to use graded scoring key.It gives a clear quality definition to teachers.As the graded scoring key is used, people feel more responsible for the product that they produce.It provides people with standards and criteria which they can use to evaluate their performances.The stages of developing graded scoring key are as follows: the purpose of developing the scale is determined, the items that will be evaluated are determined, competencies are determined, key for the evaluated behaviour, product or skill is prepared, brief critearia are created.There are two kinds of graded scoring key as holistic and analytic.Holistic graded scoring scale is scoring the main process or product holistically regardless of its units.On the other hand, analytic scoring scale includes scoring the units of the performans or the product separately and then calculating the total score.These scales are formed with the aim of providing different scores to the different aspect of a work or a product (Daşcan, 2014).
Graded scoring key includes criteria developed to score any kind of work.Development of a graded scoring key is comprised of the following steps: determining the scale purpose, determining the scoring key type, defining of the criteria, preparing the draft of the scale, determining the consistency and reliability after applying it.There are two types of the graded scoring key according to its purpose: holistic graded scoring key and analytic graded scoring key (Kıroğlu, 2011).The most useful graded scoring key is the one that we prepare (Kıroğlu, 2008).It indicates the level and perfection of a behaviour.Criteria and sub criteria which are the behavioural indicators of the evaluated feature are determined.Then the reaction categories corresponding to these criteria are stated.The number of reaction categories and the statements of the categories should be consequent with each other.The meanings attributed to grade scoring key developed by Glickman (2014) are explained in Table 1.The approaches stated in the table above should correspond to the teacher's special development level.In the directive control approach, the supervisor takes the decision and informs the individual or the group about how they will continue.A supervisor who uses directive informing approach presents alternatives to the individual or the group and asks teachers' opinions.In the cooperative approach, the supervisor and the individual or the group share the information and solutions equally in order to form a common plan.In the nondirective (self-directed) approach, the supervisor facilitates the planning and decision making processes of the individual or the group (Sullivan & Glanz, 2015).

Findings and Interpretation.
The main purpose of developmental supervision is to provide directive control approach to the teachers who need immediate help, to supply teachers who are less experienced with directive informing approach, to provide cooperative approach to the teachers who make little professional progress and to demonstrate nondirective approach to the teachers who have completed their professional development.The supervision areas and their criteria should be determined in order to apply the developmental supervision approach in schools.In the present research, the teacher opinions given in the table above were obtained by using a graded scoring key and categorized accordingly.The results obtained from the analysis of the teacher opinions are explained below.
The common and different teacher professional development areas and teachers' participation rates determined by the educators are demonstrated in Table 2.As it is seen in the table, the educators collect the teachers' professional development and supervision areas under eight main areas.These areas are generally lesson planning and preparation, teaching-learning process (lesson procedure), assessment and evaluation, professional development, communication, counselling, classroom management and projects.Therefore the educators state that as long as the determined areas are given importance and priority, both educational quality and teacher's performance will be enhanced.
The teachers participated in the research individually stated some areas that may be helpful to contribute to their professional careers.They should be taken into consideration in terms of supervision, counselling and direction.These areas are mainly on club works, appearance and outfit, personal features, law and legislation, school embracement, teaching program, shareholder contentment and time management.Club works include social activities of the teachers and students.Also appearance and outfit constitutes an important point in teachers' opinions.Teacher These areas may be considered as minor ones, however they can be regarded as general teacher development areas as well.
In the light of currect results, it can be inferred that graded scoring key to be used in teacher developmental supervision has the following features; It is teacher centered and suitable for determining and enhancing the teacher development levels.It is rather situational and applicable for constructivist learning sense.It aims to reduce the deficiencies in assessment and evaluation by following the standard criteria.Also it is more democratic and participant.
In the research results, common developmental areas stated by the teachers are determined after conducting a sythesis study on teachers' professional development areas.The summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area is given on Table 3 (a-h).As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are; no daily or yearly plans, does not apply the lesson plans, planning is based on students personal differences, planning is professional and purposes the program.As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are; most of students have low academic success, students have average academic success, students are successful in exams, students are successful and their performances are high.As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are; no objective criteria for evaluation, evaluation is not suitable for students, evaluation is suitable for some students, assessment and evaluation are carried out professionally.As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are;hides from duties and responsibilities, sometimes includes self-development and self-evaluation, fulfills professional duties without extra work, is an expert, evaluates and improves himself Teacher tries to communicate with students, parents and school management but it is not sufficient.Teacher uses slangs while speaking but is agreeable.His communication with the students is limited.There are some students who are afraid of talking with teachers.Teacher uses his body language and gestures, however fails to use them relevantly and consistently.
Teacher communicates with the students and cooperates with the parents.Teacher cooperates with the school management while applying the rules of school operations.Teacher seeks for solutions for students' problems.Teacher uses his body language and gestures wile speaking and is aware of their effects on people.Teacher takes the feedback into consideration.Teacher listens to the students and observes them.Teacher understands the deficiencies and tries to reduce them.
Teacher communicates with the students and cooperates with the parents.Teacher cooperates with the school management while applying the rules of school operations.Teacher uses body language effectively, knows how to impress the students and have good relations with the environment.Teacher communicates with the students and knows their personal and social lives.Teacher attracts the students' attention while teaching.Teacher uses different techniques in order to increase communication.Teacher does not have problems with the people of group.Teacher cares about the feedback given to him and uses all aspects of communication.Teacher listens to the students and spend time with them in order to have a strong relationship with them.As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are; does not have strong communication skills, tries to communicate, but it is not sufficient, communicates with everybody, cooperates with management, communicates and cooperates with students, parents, management Teacher arranges the levels in order to increase students' attention to the subject.Teacher pays attention to their personal motivation.Teacher is a good listener and leader.Teacher arranges seminars to the students and parents.Teacher contacts with parents and students in and out of the school making use of any educational opportunity and cooperates with the parents in order to discuss students' behaviours and success levels.Teacher provides counselling to the students about their problems.Teacher values the students and cares about their developmental features.As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are; does not have strong communication skills, tries to communicate, but it is not sufficient, communicates with everybody, cooperates with management, communicates and cooperates with students, parents, management.As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are; not competent, addresses in a small group of students, arranges classroom before starting the lesson, gives warnings, sets the rules, ready for lessons, students are motivated, students are always ready to learn, teachers does not spend energy on discipline.As it is seen in the table, the summary of graded scoring key of each professional development area are; not competent, addresses in a small group of students, arranges classroom before starting the lesson, gives warnings, sets the rules, ready for lessons, students are motivated, students are always ready to learn, teachers does not spend energy on discipline.

Conclusions
Primarily the professional development level of teachers should be analyzed and then a supervision behaviour should be demonstrated appropriate for the professional development of teachers.Since the teachers carry out a great number of roles and duties, the number of supervision areas and their sub-categories increase.As previously mentioned, the duties and responsibilities of the teachers involve lesson planning and preparation, teaching learning process, assessment and evaluation, professional development, com-ISSN 1392-0340 E-ISSN 2029-0551 Pedagogika / 2018, t. 129, Nr. 1 munication, counselling, classroom management and projects.Accordingly, the teachers should be provided with cooperation, counselling, directing and supervision according to directive control, directive informing, cooperative and nondirective approaches.As Glickman et al. (2014) states, the teachers' professional development levels, expertise and professional commitment determine their counselling and supervision types.The important point is that the professional development needs of the teachers should be determined.Therefore, suitable professional leadership roles can be provided to them.

Table 1
Explanation of Graded Scoring Key

Table 2
Most Important and Common Areas For Teachers Improvement and Not Functioning Supervision