Supervising Knowledge Work.

This paper summarizes a new paradigm of instructional supervision, which shifts the focus on supervision from an examination of individual behavior to the improvement of work processes and social system components of the school district. The paradigm, called "Knowledge Work Supervision," helps teams of teachers and specially trained supervisors redesign their districts to create high-performance organizations. "Knowledge work" is any work that uses or produces knowledge to deliver products or services to customers. The paradigm was derived from literature on sociotechnical systems design, knowledge work, business process engineering, and organizational development. Given the systemic characteristics of a school district, the dominant orthodox paradigms of supervision (such as clinical supervision and supervision-as-inspection evaluation) seem inappropriate because they focus on the behavior of individual teachers. Thus, it seems appropriate to shift paradigms so that practitioners can focus on the supervision of deliberations and on supervising the boundaries between grades, levels of schooling, and the school system and its environment. Supervision would also focus on the quality and functioning of the social system in relation to the technical system. A paradigm shift may result in a better fit between supervisory processes and the purpose, goals, and outcomes of a school system that seeks to improve its effectiveness. One figure is included. (LMI)