Supervision of instruction

The purpose of this paper is to make a preliminary investigation into the origin and development of the concept of instructional supervision in institutions of higher learning. The present study is not concerned primarily with the arguments for and against supervision, except as they are incidental to tracing the rise and growth of the concept of supervision. A search of the literature was undertaken employing three approaches-periodicals, reports of administrative officers, and the annual proceedings of various associations of colleges and universities. The assumption underlying this differentiation is that the periodicals reflect what the individual professor thinks about supervision; the annual reports indicate the thinking of administrative officers; and the proceedings of the associations reveal what professors and administrators acting in concert with each other think about the problem. Of course, the fact that there will be some overlapping between these three groups is granted. There are articles in the periodicals written by administrators, and some of the ideas found in the proceedings represent minority viewpoints, but, because of the range and span of material reviewed, the lines of demarcation are quite plain. It is interesting to note that the concept of improving college instruction is relatively recent. A search of the Reader's Guide Index from 1905 to 1925 reveals thirteen articles under the topic of teaching in colleges and universities. Not until 1925 is Improvement of Instruction listed under a separate heading. Of the thirteen articles, two deal with specific methods of teaching, two with the amount of time devoted to teaching and research, one with teaching load, and the remaining eight on improving instruction. In this last group, we find the first appearance in periodicals of the concept of supervision of instruction at the college level. M. L. Robinson in School and Society, October 9, 1915, wrote on the Need of Supervision in College Teaching and presented some cogent arguments for supervising college teachers. In 1918 the editors of School and Society published the report of the Senate Committee on Educational Policy of the University of Chicago under the title, Methods of Discovering the Exceptional Teacher. The Senate Committee was asked by the President of the University to