The future of clinical supervision in teacher education: From a single supervisor to academia-school leadership

Abstract

In this study, we looked at the competencies and practices of clinical supervisors' role in teacher education programs in Israel. The study encompassed two phases. The first was holistic and included multiple data sources. The second took place in real-life in schools. We opted for a small-scale qualitative embedded multiple-case study design. The findings reveal three patterns of clinical supervision. The first, the most prevalent, focused on the responsibility of the clinical supervisors exclusively for the pre-service teachers. The second was collaborative supervision of clinical supervisors and mentor-teachers. The third pattern, which was rarely found, was characterized as hybrid-supervision. We argue that the challenges of changing the relationships among all stakeholders and leading collaborative learning require a new definition of clinical supervisors as academia-school partnership leaders and a different paradigm of teaching and learning.