Self-Test and Reflection

(1) Summary, TPI results

Summary of results

Among the five perspectives: Transmission, Apprenticeship, Developmental, Nurturing, and Social Reform, I scored highest on Developmental and lowest in Social Reform. Also, all my scores are above 30 and below 36. All five perspectives are not differed too much from each other. The profile looks more “flat” rather than “step-like”. According to the TPI website, Dominant perspective is “Developmental” and the recessive perspective is “Social Reform”. According to TPI website “Nurturing” perspective is a Back-up. In terms of the sub-scores of Belief, Action, and Intention according to TPI website, there is high internal consistency in Apprenticeship where Beliefs, Intentions, and Actions are all aligned with each other. There is an inconsistency among the sub-scores in Transmission. My highest intention sub score occurs at the dominant perspective.

(2) What the tests say (and) Surprises

First, let us look at each of the so-called five perspectives. The red underlined parts are the ones (but not limited to) that lack clear definitions or that cannot have clear definitions. These may be fuzzy terms that are dependent on individual, topic of subject under study, and so on. The relationship between explanation of the five perspectives and the questions in the test, the formula to compute the test scores/profile score from the participant answers are lacking from the TPI website.

Tr = (Belief = 14) + (Intentions = 8) + (Actions = 12) = 34

Mathematics is developing with respect to experiences, situations, point of views, and so on. A math teacher may be a “master” (not the masters’ degree) in a certain topic matter when looking at that matter from some points of views. In the other points of views on this same topic, that teacher may not be a master.  Students have right to learn a topic matter from different points of views, not just those points of views the teacher is mastering at.  The integer number scores of 14 for belief, 8 for intention and 12 for action (also for the other four perspectives) are a little bit of surprise not only because these three terms are fuzzy but also because the definitions along with formulas to compute these numbers are not declared, let alone discussion among diversity.

              Ap = (B =11 ) + (I =11) + (A =11) = 33

A surprise is when I read “accessible language” which I always try to do. However many of the educational (research) papers we read including this TPI has jargons and long sentences that could make them inaccessible to many citizens. That means, there is a lack of participation by the people for which educational papers are written. We remember that education is for all. 

Dv = (B =11 ) + (I =13) + (A =12) = 36       

This part is the one that contains the least amount of confusion. A surprise is that this score is the highest among the five perspectives. 

Nu = (B =13 ) + (I =12) + (A =10) = 35

“Absolute achievement” is a surprising term. What is “absolute achievement”?. If there is such a definition by someone and all of us have to follow, then there is a big “Why”? Apart from that, the rest of the content is understandable. 

Sr = (B =11 ) + (I =10) + (A = 9)  = 30

I was brought up in the society in which peace and cooperation are considered important things. When I reached college and university, I read from more diverse resources such as alternative media, news directly from people who went to the place of the event of interest,  and listen to people of diversity. I have come to understand that science (including math) that we know and are learning can be used for both “good” (from human convenience/desire point of view) and “destructions” such as war; atomic, chemical, biological and genetic change weapons; climate change, etc. So the things such as “value” embedded in the “text” are confusing. The term “learners are positioned” is another confusing term. Learners have the right to position themselves with respect to a “text”. They would learn what is said at first. Then they could position themselves to ask questions about validity and reason of that “text” and who made that “text” and why and how that person had the right to do that “text” and so on. Learners can question on modifications, generalization, alternative to that “text”. Learners can position themselves as inquirers.  

(3) Do I agree that the TPI results are currently  my perspective on teaching? Any interesting questions?

(3a) The design of the test, the score number calculations in the profile sheet (result of completing the test) may carry logical explanation or explanation based on diverse and regularly updated solid evidences. I have no access to these information yet.

(3b) The test is made of constructed questions. Each question can be answered by selecting exactly one of the given constructed answers. The designed form of answers are in ordinal scale from SD = strongly disagree to SA = strongly agree for the questions in part two, and in frequency scale from N = never to A = always on part three and four. The possible variations of the answers with respect to the time and subject topic matter is not given a chance.

There are some words such as “not enough” (part two), “expert” (part two), “a lot of information” (part three) that may have different definitions depending on the individual. There is an “and” between “complexity” and “inter-relationship” for undefined “things” on part three question No.28. The answer could depend on the “thing” under interest.

There is another “and” between “accuracy” and “in allotted time” w.r.t. completion of “required content” on part four question No.31. This design may be on purpose, only that other options such as “complete in allotted time but not accurately due to inclusion of external knowledge or modification of some items in textbook due to new publications” are missing.

There seems to be no information on if the design of the test has been modified over the time for some reasons. All in all, this test may be a good first starter which is open to be monitored by citizens (because education is for all) regularly and updated whenever necessary on participation of diversity. And personal information are solely owned by the respective person. 

(3c) The design of the questions, calculation methods to obtain the integer scores are unexplained. With the lack of explanations, the statistical results may not carry the weight. 

Is the highest score in “developmental perspective” due to the least confusion? The answer to this question may be heavy on bias. Even though I do not divide my teaching philosophy into five such perspectives, my opinion is that I do not put myself into making importance-level assignment to these five perspectives. If I happen to put more weight on one at one point, then at the next point I might be putting more weight on the other. If I am forced to compare, I would likely to say equality across these five perspectives and within each perspective (B,I,A), and I would not be able to explain what that “equality” is. 

It could be that this TPI (if not used for judgement) may work with greater validity for teachers of some subjects but not so much for mathematics. In math, we investigate in depth and width, and from different points of views, as well as using logical reasoning. Consistent definitions which are regularly improved as human maturity grows is a characteristic of math. Therefore, to be honest, the test results do not fully represent my current perspective on teaching. It may represent some (this “some” is not according to these “five perspectives”) of my perspectives fairly but certainly not all.