Developed from: The Teaching Perspectives Inventory and Summaries of Five Teaching Perspectives, by Daniel D.

Pratt and John B. Collins (teachingperspectives.com)

Five Perspectives on Teaching

Transmission: Effective teaching requires a substantial commitment to the content or subject matter. Effective teachers are experts with mastery over the content or subject matter. Teachers are responsible for representing the content accurately and efficiently, while learners are responsible for learning that content in its authorized form. Apprenticeship: Effective teaching is a process of enculturating students into a set of social norms and ways of working. Teachers are responsible for modeling appropriate behavior for learners, who observe teacher-practitioners in action. Teaching and learning is most effective when people are working on authentic tasks in real settings of application or practice. The instructional process is often a combination of demonstration, observation, and guided practice, with learners gradually doing more and more of the work. Developmental: Effective teaching is planned and conducted from the learners point of view. Effective teachers understand how their learners think and reason about the content, and then adapt their own knowledge based on their learners needs. Teachers are responsible for asking questions and providing meaningful bridging examples that challenge the learners to move from relatively simple to more complex forms of thinking. Nurturing: Effective teaching respects the learners self-esteem and self-efficacy. Teachers are responsible for promoting a climate of caring and trust, helping learners set challenging but achievable goals, and providing encouragement and support, along with clear expectations and reasonable goals for all learners. Assessment of learning considers individual growth or progress, in addition to absolute achievement. Social Reform

Effective teaching seeks to change society in substantive ways. Effective teachers awaken students to the values and ideologies that are embedded in texts and common practices within their discipline. They challenge the status quo and encourage students to consider how learners are positioned and constructed in particular discourses and practices. Students are encouraged to take a critical stance, empowering them to take social action to improve their own lives; critical deconstruction, though central to this view, is not an end in itself.

Which perspective or perspectives best describe your views about teaching?