Sunday, May 13, 2012

My Teaching Perspective - Does this mean I am well balanced?

In my most recent master's class on Systems Analysis and Learning Theory, I was assigned an inventory on teaching perspectives. The Teaching Perspectives Inventory is designed to help you discover how you perceive teaching and learning. There are five perspectives, Transmission, Apprenticeship, Developmental, Nurturing, and Social Reform. They are very clear that everyone uses all five at some point, it is just that we prefer some perspectives more than others.
This was an interesting assignment. I made sure I didn't read the breakdown or articles about the perspectives before I started the inventory. I found it difficult to answer the questions because I often found myself agreeing with statements. This was reflected in my results. I was fairly small in the spread of my scores. My highest score was a 34 for Apprenticeship which makes sense since rather than being a teacher I am an Ed Tech so I am mostly working one on one or in small groups with instructors helping them use different types of technology or helping them integrate technology into their classes. My lowest score was a 30 in Transmission which is only 4 points different. So my spread was only 4 points. I ended up with two dominant perspectives Apprenticeship (34) and Nurturing (33), one back-up perspective Social Reform (32), and two recessive perspectives Developmental (31) and Transmission (30).
Does the spread of my scores mean tat I am well balanced and see that all of these perspectives have a place or does this say that I have not formed my teaching style yet?

2 comments:

  1. I found the test interesting but I wonder about its usefulness. I found I strongly agreed with a lot of the questions and tried to be much more nuanced in answering them than I would normally be. My highest score was in nuturance - which isn't surprising given how I run my classes. But, again, I'm not sure if the test's questions are particularly effective.

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  2. Yes this is a concern for me too. I also find with this type of test that I tend to like the question I am on at the moment. Really this test is just meant for exploration and personal reflection but I find that people tend to view test/inventory scores as unchanging absolutes. The can hide perspective and behaviours rather than the perspectives and behaviours guiding the results.

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