Friday, 25 September 2015

Blog 4: My TPI Reflection


As seen in this TPI Profile Sheet Table, my result seems pretty consistent throughout. On average, I scored 32.6 on the scale, with a standard deviation of 2.65. I scored high on Apprenticeship teaching style and lowest on Social Reform, while Nurturing, Developmental, and Transmission teaching style are fairly consistent. From looking at the results, I would think that I scored high on Transmission because when I was tutoring or teaching students, I often value the subject matter (the knowledge) more highly than the teaching styles. As a student, I would think knowledge is the ultimate key to understanding because without it, there would be nothing to teach the students or us teachers! However, as I read more on other areas of teaching, I start to realize that there are more areas than just simply teaching the contents. As a teacher, we are no longer teaching the subjects, but really teaching the students. The high-scored Apprenticeship area tells me that, as a teacher, I "translate" knowledge into "accessible language" for students. I am here to provide "guidance and direction" to engage learners with ways that they feel more comfortable of learning. I find this result of teaching very true.

I remember when I was tutoring students on math areas that I felt comfortable with sharing, mostly because I learned and understood before as a high school student, I noticed that some students weren't getting the concepts, even if I explained to them in most simplest terms. I realized that how my teacher taught me was way different (and a bit more complicated) than how their teachers had taught them. I guess I didn't expect teachers within the same school board to teach students differently. As a result, they just weren't getting the concepts. To resolve this, I had to adapt my ways of learning to their ways of learning, to "translate" my thinking into a language that is "accessible" to them that they are more familiar with. It is important for me, as a teacher, to read and really understand students and their needs (i.e. strengths and weaknesses) so I would know what best strategies to teach them - to see whether they needed support or additional remedial assistance.

I am quite surprised that I scored lowest on Social Reform. Social Reform, as written on the TPI website, is the "effective teaching [that] seeks to to change society in substantive ways." I had always thought that mathematics is really practical in ways that can build our society. The world we live in is immersed with the concept of math - it can be found in science, engineering, and even arts - they all have math as a fundamental basis. I really encourage students to associate what they are learning to the world around them; to let them apply math in a practical setting is the sole purpose of math studies. As a teacher, it is also important to let students take critical stances on what they are learning (to mature their brain activities). As the guest speaker at one of my other class said to us earlier, "the most difficult child is the one who learns the most." I guess I will have to improve my my social reform teaching style!

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