Memory and relationships: A look into teachers' recollection of supervisory feedback

Abstract

In public schools in the United States, the work of an ESOL student teacher is characterized by relationships with multiple mentors, including a university supervisor. Through retrospective narrative accounts, this study examines what currently practicing teachers of multilingual learners retained of their supervisors' feedback from their student teaching days, and what nuggets of supervisory wisdom continue to resonate with them throughout their teaching careers. The researchers developed this qualitative study using a social constructivist lens informed by Carless and Winstone's (2023) feedback literacy dimensions. Interviews were conducted with eight current teachers to probe their recollections of supervision and integration of supervisory feedback into their practice. Findings suggest that the participants recalled a sprinkling of memories and continued to draw on a few pieces of supervisory advice in their current practice. Supervisors and student teachers demonstrated design, relational, and pragmatic dimensions of feedback literacy, though the relational (i.e., the quality of the relationship between supervisor and student teacher) was the most enduring, even if the specifics of the supervisory feedback faded. Implications suggest that teacher education programs can hone the purpose, mission, and methods of supervision by targeting the dimensions of feedback literacy to make supervisory feedback more constructive and impactful.