Blog Post Due Nov 29^th

TPI Survey Reflection

My survey result shows that my dominate perspectives are nurturing and apprenticeship. My back-up perspective is developmental, and my two recessive perspectives are social reform and transmission.  The difference among sub-scores B, I and I categories are within 3 points under each category except the developmental perspective.

To interpret the difference under the developmental perspective, I see my intention for developmental is the highest, and there isn’t a big gap compare to action.  However, there is a 4 points difference between the belief category and the intention category.  This internal inconsistency can be explained by the fact that I don’t have enough teaching experience.  Although I have certain beliefs in teaching, I didn’t have chances to put them into actions.  As a result, the beliefs I have haven’t been solidified to form a concrete teaching philosophy.  It is surprising to me that one of my dominate perspectives is apprenticeship.  Is that an indication that I want my students to be more practical in applying knowledge into workforce (more employable)?

One of the interesting questions is that “effective teacher must first be experts in their own subject areas”.  I recall my answer to this question was strongly agree.  However, when I think more about it, I feel I am not sure if I really agree with this statement.   I have different people expressed different opinions on this matter.  I remember my Financial Accounting instructor is a very successful chief accountant in a big firm.  He once advised me that one has to be good at what you are doing.  For example, if I want to be a successful accountant I need to be an expert in accounting knowledge (I was studying accounting at the time).  I deeply believed in his thinking until I started working in the fields of education.  My supervisor has a very different view.  He believes knowledge can be obtained through learning.  For example, being a math teacher doesn’t mean that one has to hold superior mathematical knowledge in order to teach.   What one really needs to have is the ability to accept, adapt and learn any knowledge at any given time.  I guess is this type of thinking endeavours me to pursue a profession as a math teacher.