Science of Learning: Evidence‐Based Teaching in the Clinical Supervision Classroom

Abstract

Although clinical supervision is widely viewed as an educational process, counseling doctoral students may lack relevant background in pedagogy. In response to calls to incorporate learning theories and principles into supervision instruction, 7 evidence-based science of learning principles as well as examples from 1 doctoral supervision course are described.

Does the Number of Supervised Counseling Practice Experiences Make Difference in the Wisdom of Pre-Service Counselors?

“…It means that the number supervised counseling practice experience proves to be one of the important efforts undertaken to influence the development wisdom of pre-service counselors (Hanna et al, 1999;Levitt & Piazza-Bonin, 2016;Osterlund, 2016). Other experts argue that supervision is a instrumental pedagogy suggestions for helping pre-service counselors learn how to reflect on and self-direct their learning (Bernard & Goodyear, 2014;Borders, 2019). Reflection on the lessons of history may help to recognize some problems with an uncritical faith in the personal qualities of mental health practitioners.…”

Signature Pedagogy and Beyond: Reflections on Baltrinic and Wachter Morris (2020)

“…Shulman, 2005bShulman, , 2005c in "conditions of inherent and unavoidable uncertainty" (Shulman, 2005a, p. 18), an apropos description of students' clinical interactions with actual clients during practicum and internship. In other words, supervisee development involves accessing declarative knowledge (e.g., content such as counseling theories, basic helping skills, evidence-based practices, multicultural concepts, ethical codes) through the development of procedural knowledge (e.g., how to actually apply that knowledge), conditional knowledge (e.g., when to apply that knowledge), and conceptual knowledge (e.g., why it is appropriate to apply some specific knowledge with this client now; see Borders, 2019). Indeed, counselors must learn how to make such decisions instantaneously and constantly -to think like a counselor during counseling sessions.…”

“…Indeed, counselors must learn how to make such decisions instantaneously and constantly -to think like a counselor during counseling sessions. In other words, clinical supervision is when classroom instructors' oft-refrained "it depends" becomes the focus, so thatwith intentional examination and reflection during clinical supervision -novice counselors begin to build their "accumulated knowledge/wisdom" (Skovolt & Rønnestad, 1992) toward clinical "adaptive expertise" (see Borders, 2019). Even more, to accomplish this learning, supervisees must make themselves visible, and vulnerable, by sharing recordings of their counseling sessions with their supervisor for review, critique, and discussion.…”

“…Of course, the previously mentioned description reflects the desired clinical supervision interchange based in research and best practices (Borders et al, 2014), which certainly is not reflective of every supervision session in counseling -or any other discipline. One likely culprit is insufficient pedagogical training for supervisors (and most counselor educators; e.g., Baltrinic et al, 2016;Borders, 2019). Thus, to effectively provide counseling's signature pedagogy, clinical supervisors must learn how to think like a supervisor (Borders, 1993).…”

International Counseling Doctoral Students' Teaching Preparation: A Phenomenological Study

“…The existing studies on teaching preparation covered a few broad areas, including teaching techniques, social and cultural diversity, counseling and helping relationships, and group work in counselor education (Barrio Minton et al, 2014. In more recent literature, researchers have started to examine concrete pedagogical skills in teaching preparation, such as using improvisation (Bayne & Jangha, 2016), flipped learning (Merlin-Knoblich & Camp, 2018), creative teaching (McGhee et al, 2019), and evidencebased teaching (Borders, 2019). To capture doctoral students' teaching preparation from an insider's perspective, Baltrinic et al (2016) explored 10 counselor education doctoral students' coteaching experiences with faculty members.…”