Teaching Perspectives TPI reflection

Looking at my TPI graph, I am roughly at the average for most of the five teaching perspectives, with the exception of the social reform teaching perspective. My nurture as well as my developing teaching perspectives are high and almost one standard deviation above average. For nurturing, this means that I strongly believe that effective teaching assumes that long-term, hard, and persistent effort comes from the heart, not the head. For developmental, this means that I believe that effective teaching must be planned and conducted from the learner's point of view. On the other hand, my social reform teaching perspective being almost two standard deviations below average means that as a teacher, I focus on the individual rather than the collective. This means that I tend to not take learning into social contexts and challenge students to question their beliefs and values.

Looking at my results, I cannot say that I am surprised. I do believe that all students are capable and can be nurtured to succeed as long as they put in the effort. From experience, the students who have failed the class are the ones who fail to complete the homework, not pay attention in class, and never ask for help. I have also had students who struggled in the early phases of class, but through effort, determination, and persistence, performed better than most of their peers because they were active in their own learning.  

I also believe that teachers should teach content in a way that students can best understand. As each students has different learning preferences, it is important for teachers to study their students and have a grasp of how to accomodate to their learning style. Good teachers can teach the same concept from multiple perspectives in multiple contexts depending on the student.

Lastly, my social reform perspective is low and I can see why. For starters, I tend not to link social issues to math. I often feel like social issues are more relevant in other subject areas, as math focuses more on logic and critical thinking in different circumstances. The other reason why I avoid and am often careful around social issues (especially the controversial ones) is becuase not everyone's values and/or beliefs may align. Some people disagree with certain things that most people agree on, and perhaps they may be sensitive when talking about them. Hence, I am very careful when talking to students or people of various backgrounds and beliefs.

I guess one follow-up question would be that is discussion of social issues really important in the math context?