Assessing and Planning Skills: Direct Assistance to Teachers The dynamic responsibilities of a supervisor demand a diverse skill set in order to effectively envision, communicate, plan, achieve, and reflect on the progress, or lack of, toward the school’s vision or mission statement. A pivotal component of this progression is a supervisor’s ability to effectively empower teachers and staff in their professional development by effectively evaluating the needs, styles, and preferences of the staff. With this in mind, this essay will compare and contrasts two strategies utilized to support teachers in their growth toward professional goals; clinical supervision and peer coaching. Further, this essay will identify the strengths and weaknesses of each model and how they use assessing and planning skills. Each model uniquely contributes to the supervisory process using diverse methods, developed in the educational community over the past six decades. The initial model of clinical supervision was outlined by Robert Goldhammer in 1969, included five steps the pre-observation, conference, observation, analysis and strategy, supervision conference, post-conference. In 1973, Morris Cogan elaborated on Goldhammer's work and described a clinical model of supervision consisting of eight steps, establishing the teacher-supervision relationship, planning with teacher, planning the strategy of observation, observing instruction, analyzing the teaching learning process, planning the strategy of the conference, the conference, and renewed planning. Both designs have been simplified even further by Acheson and Gall to include the following three steps: a planning conference, classroom observation, and a feedback conference (Clifford, Macy, etc., 2005).

The model’s strength lies in its goal-oriented, collegial approach to improving instruction. This model requires a substantive,