Why take the TPI?

Why take the TPI?
The TPI is taken for many reasons. In this first blog, I’d like to discuss two common reasons for taking the TPI: First, to articulate your approach or philosophy of teaching;  and second, to facilitate conversations across different philosophies of teaching.

Let’s look more closely at the first one: To articulate your approach or philosophy of teaching. Sometimes we are expected to explain our approach to teaching. It can be as simple as explaining to learners why we do certain things when teaching or supervising them. It might be as important as explaining to evaluators of our teaching why we do what we do. Or it might be to draft a teaching philosophy statement as part of reflecting on our teaching. In each case, we want to be clear about the motives and justifications behind our actions — what we are trying to accomplish, how we do that and, sometimes, the rationale for teaching the way we do. The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) can give people insight into their teaching and language to explain it to others.

In the case of evaluators of teaching, this can be critical, especially if their orientation to teaching is markedly different from the teacher being evaluated. Colleagues come to the task of evaluating teaching with conscious and unconscious biases based on what they believe about effective teaching. This can be negligible; but it can also be profound. I’ve often heard people say that one or another perspective on teaching is not a legitimate form of teaching (e.g., Social Reform) or that a particular view of teaching is no longer acceptable where they teach (e.g., Transmission). This tendency to dismiss particular forms of teaching does an injustice to some of our most memorable teachers. The TPI can help people explain and justify their orientation to teaching.

This brings me to the second reason for taking the TPI – to facilitate conversations across different orientations to teaching. When colleagues team teach or meet to review or discuss curriculum changes, offer help to junior faculty, or even when hiring new faculty, they need a language and framework that articulates and values pedagogical differences. The TPI can make for a more inclusive conversation about teaching that affords voice and place to those that are ‘different’.

This is also important when working with colleagues that have ways of thinking about teaching and learning that are different from the norm in their community of practice. As of November 2019, more than 300,000 people have taken the TPI. Our data show similar teaching profiles for specific disciplines and professions. For example, teachers of the basic sciences have a similar profile, as do teachers of math, social sciences, humanities, education, emergency medicine, paediatrics, surgery and nursing. In other words, as Lee Shulman has said, each profession or discipline has a ‘signature pedagogy’ that is common across teachers within their community of practice.

While there are similarities within each subject, discipline or health profession there are also ‘outliers’, that is, people that don’t fit the signature profile for their specialty. That doesn’t mean they are ineffective; quite the opposite. These outliers can be innovators, often helping learners challenge the status quo. However, as outliers, they can be silenced, dismissed or ‘othered’ by having a different approach to teaching.

More information about why people take the TPI can be found in the 2016 edition of ‘Five Perspectives on Teaching: Mapping a plurality of the good’ published by Krieger. (Pratt, Smulders & Associates)