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STUDENT No. I

At the beginning of the hour students go to the board to write out answers to questions on the lesson. The hour is spent listening to the recitation of each student and the explanation of difficult points. We never cover more than one half of the lesson; sometimes only one third. The next hour the questions are on the new lesson, not on the incompleted portion of the former lesson. My knowledge of physics is punctuated by areas of ignorance. These alternate with topics that I think I understand clearly.

Teacher D: A quiet, modest man. Sits back comfortably in his seat and asks questions_on assigned texts. The questions review the

STUDENT No. II application. The laboratory work of each week is related to the lecture and throws interesting side lights on it. We have quiz sections once a week. Here the work is oral and written.

Teacher D: A very strict teacher of English literature. He assigns text for study. and we must be prepared for detailed questions on each of the great writers. He very strict and detailed. We had to know suall the fifteen qualities of Macaulay's No, style. not read Macaulay this term; we study from a history of English literature that tells us all about the master writers.'

text, and he explains in further detail the facts in the book. The conscientious and capable student finds him perfluous; the indifferent student remains unmoved by his phlegmatic presentation; the poor student finds him a help; the shirk who listens and takes notes is saved studying at home.

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He economics. plains important principles in economics. We follow in a printed syllabus, so that it is to unnecessary is He talks notes. and makes things clear. We are given assign-'s "Elements in S ments did of Economics," on which we are questioned another by teacher. "Is the work in the quiz section related directly to the lectures? Sometimes. No, we do not take current economic problems. These are given in a later elective course."

Teacher E: A quiet, dignified gentleman who teaches us psychology. A chapter is assigned in the book, and the hour is spent hearing students recite on the text. He sticks closely to the book. He explains clearly when the book is not clear or not specific enough. The hours drag, for the book is good and those who studied the lessons weary at what seems to us needless repetition.

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Teacher E: An instructor in psychology. His hours are weary and dreary. A chapter is assigned in X's Elements of Psychology.". He asks a question or two and then repeats what the author tells us, even using the illustrations and diagrams found in the text. Sometimes a student reads a paper which he prepared.

"No. we do not get

very much out of these papers read by students. But then we get just as little from the instructor. No, we

Causes of ineffective

college

teaching

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STUDENT No. II

Teacher F:

A learn-
ed Latin scholar who
is very enthusiastic
about his specialty.
The students exhibit
cheerful tolerance. He
assigns a given num-
ber of lines per day.
These we prepare
at
home. In class we
give translation
a
in
English that has dis-
torted phrases and
clauses, lest we be ac-
cused of dishonesty in
preparation. The rest
of the time is spent on
questions of syntax,
references, footnotes,
and the identification
of the real and myth-
ological characters in
the text. The teacher
is animated and ef-
fective.

STUDENT No. III never apply the psychology to our Own thinking nor to teaching nor to the behavior of children or adults."

Teacher F: A forbidding but very strict Latin teacher. His questions are fast and numerous and the hesitating student is lost. He assigns at least twenty-five per cent more per lesson than any other instructor. The hour is spent in translating, parsing, and quizzing on historical and mythological allusions. Every "pony" user is soon caught, because he is asked SO many questions on each sentence. There is a distinct relief when the hour is over because he is constantly at you. "Will I take the next course in Latin? Not unless I must. This is prescribed work. It can't end too soon for me, nor for the others in the class.'

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The student of scientific and statistical measurements in education may object to attaching any importance to these informal characterizations of college teachers by undergraduates. College teachers interested in the pedagogical aspects of their subject, and college administrators who spend time observing class instruction will concede that these young men were not at all unfortunate in their teachers. The significance of these characterizations is not that college teachers vary in teaching efficiency, but rather that inefficient college teaching is general, and that the causes of this inefficiency are such as respond readily to simple remedial measures very well known to elementary and high school teachers.

It

may

be well to note the chief causes of ineffective college teaching before directing attention to a remedial program:

(a) Many college teachers hold to be true the time

honored fallacy that the only equipment for successful teaching is a thorough knowledge of the subject. They do not stop to square their belief with actual facts. They overlook the examples of their colleagues possessed of undisputed scholarship who are failures in the classroom. They fail to realize that there are psychological and pedagogical aspects of the teaching art which demand careful organization, skilful gradation and a happy selection of illustrations. intimately related to the lives of the students.

(b) Closely related to this first cause of ineffective teaching is a lack of sympathetic understanding of the student's viewpoint. The scholarly teacher, deep in the intricacies and speculations of his specialty, is often impatient with the groping of the beginner. He may not realize that the student before him, apparently indifferent to the most vital aspects of his subject, has potentialities for development in it. His interest in his researches and his vision of the far-reaching human relations of his subject may blind him to the difficulties that beset the path of the beginner.

(c) The inferiority of college teaching in many institutions can often be traced to the absence of constructive supervision. The supervising officer in elementary and secondary schools makes systematic visits to the classrooms of young or ineffective teachers, observes their work, offers remedial suggestions, and tries to infuse a professional interest in the technique of teaching. In the college such supervision would usually stir deep resentment. The college teacher is, in matters of teaching, a law unto himself. He sees little of the actual teaching of his colleagues; they see as little of his. His contact with the head of his department, and his departmental and faculty meetings, are usually limited to discussions of college policy and of the sequence and content of courses. Methods of teaching are rarely, if ever, brought up for discussion. The results are inevitable. Weaknesses in teaching are perpetuated, while the devices and practices of an effective teacher remain unknown to his colleagues.

(d) A fourth factor which accounts for much of the inefficiency in college pedagogics is made the thesis of Dr. Mezes' chapter on "The Training of the College Teacher." The college teacher, unlike teachers in other grades of an educational system, is expected to teach without a knowledge of educational aims and ideals, and without a knowledge of the psychological principles which should guide him in his work. The prospective college teacher, having given evidence of scholarship alone, has intrusted to him, the noisy, expressive, and rapidly developing youth. We set up no standards aside from character and scholarship. We do not demand evidence of teaching ability, a knowledge of applied psychology and of accepted teaching practices, skill in presentation, power of organizing material in graded sequence, or ability to frame a series of questions designed to stimulate and sustain the self-activity of the pupils. The born college teacher remains the successful teacher. The poor college teacher finds no agent which tends to raise his teaching to a higher level. The temperamentally unfit are not weeded out. But teaching is an art, and like all arts it requires conscientious professional preparation, the mastery of underlying scientific principles, and practice under supervision scrupulous in its attention to technique.

We have here outlined a few of the causes which keep college teaching on a low plane. The remedial measures are in each case too obvious to mention. It remains for college authorities to formulate a well-conceived and adjustable program of means and methods of ridding college teaching of those forces which keep it in a discouraging state. It is our purpose in the remainder of this chapter not to evolve a system of pedagogics, but rather to touch on the most vital principles in teaching which must be borne in mind if college teaching is to be rendered pedagogically comparable to elementary and secondary teaching. We shall confine ourselves to teaching practices which are applicable to all subjects in the college curriculum.

PRINCIPLES IN COLLEGE TEACHING

One of the very first elements in good teaching is the clear recognition of a well-defined aim that gives purpose and direction to all that is attempted in a lesson or in a period. The chief cause of poor teaching is aimless teaching, in which the sole object seems to be to fill the allotted time with talking about the facts of a given subject. We sit patiently through a recitation in English literature. Act I, Scene 1 of Hamlet had been assigned for home study and is now the text for the hour. Questions are asked on the dramatic structure of this scene, on versification, on the meaning of words and expressions now obsolete, on peculiarities of syntax, and finally a question or two on a character portrayal. The bell brings these questions to an abrupt end. Ask teacher and students the aim of all these questions. To the former, they are means of testing the students' knowledge of a variety of facts of language and literature; to the latter they mean little, and serve only to repress a living interest and appreciation of living literary text. How much more effective the hour in English literature would have been if the entire act had been assigned with a view to giving the students an insight into the dramatic structure of each scene in this act and of the act as a whole. All the questions would then bear on dramatic movement, on the dramatist's technique, on his way of arousing interest in his story, on devices for giving the cause and the development of the action. In the opening scene we read:

Elsinore. A Platform before the Castle.

Francisco at his post. Enter to him Bernardo.

BER. Who's there?

FRAN. Nay, answer me; stand, and unfold yourself.
BER. Long live the King!

FRAN. Bernardo?

BER. He.

FRAN. You come most carefully upon your hour.

BER. 'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

A clearly

conceived

aim must

control all teaching

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