A Companion to Research in Teacher Education

but also actions she proposed to guide his writing of the missing reflections. As
indicated in the chain, Brad then responded by sending the requested reflections.
Denise’s response is both critical and supportive in multiple ways, leading her to
conclude that Brad was“making great progress.”
The ways in which she provided feedback made visible how she sought to
support his growth in reflecting on his teaching, while also providing areas for
further exploration. This email chain, therefore, provided evidence of how the
supervisor understood her role as support for the Brad's learning as well as how he
took up her suggested questions to complete the assignment at this point in time.
However, as a later exchange indicates (March 18), Brad once again failed to
submit his lesson plans. This time, however, the omission was not due to a lack of
understanding of the required content but because of external factors, i.e., job
search.
On April 28, the issue of missing components was also raised in the chain
between April 29 and 30, in which she sent a request to Brad for missing lesson
plans. This latter exchange made visible how Brad elected to respond to this
request. One way of interpreting his initial response to the supervisor was that she
was not specific about which plans to submit, since she did not reference past or
present plans that were missing. Given this was approximately four months into the
program, and a recurrent theme, we argue that Brad was aware of the requirement
for weekly submission of lesson plans and that his failure to send in his plans
deserved further exploration, one not possible solely from the email trail.
The analysis of Brad’s email exchanges formed a rich point, one that raised
questions for the external ethnographer about the reporting system within the ECTE
program and the relationship among actors in the chain of supervision. This
question led to identification of a chain of interactions between the program
manager and Denise, as indicated in her emails on April 30b/May 1. In this email
chain, Denise raised concerns about how she should address Brad’s growing pattern
of action (failure to submit lesson plans until requested), and how to assess his
competence in lesson-planning, which was a program requirement for her work.
This shift in interactional actors made visible to whom Denise was accountable
within the larger ECTE program. Denise sent another email on May 11 to the
program manager, and this time included the program director. Email exchanges

Table 16.1 (continued)

Dates Observation visits related to email

exchanges about lesson-planning

Context and referential content of texts

May 12 Brad responds in email to Denise Informs her that he places past lesson plans

in a folder in the classroom

May 12 Amy sends her lesson plans For the past weeks, even though they are

required in advance

May 14 Denise observes Brad

May 17 Brad sends Denise his lesson plans

16 Researching the Intersection of Program Supervision and Field... 245