The educational aim vs. the instructional aim FRAN. For this relief much thanks: 'tis bitter cold. And I am sick at heart. BER. Have you had a quiet guard? Here we see the guard on duty challenged by his relief, a most unusual procedure. Why does this experienced guard so far forget the customary forms as to challenge the guard on duty? What possible reason can there be for this? How would you read the second line? What words must be emphasized to show the surprise of the challenged guard? If the entire hour were given to the whole of Act I and all the questions sought to reveal to the students Shakespeare's power of dramatic structure, a definite and lasting impression would be carried away. Act I should be assigned again, but with a different aim. The teacher now seeks to make clear to the student the dramatist's method of character portrayal. A third hour may be spent on certain portions of this act in which attention is given to significant facts of language, choice of words, or poetic form. When a guiding aim controls, all questions, suggestions, explanations, and illustrations tend to create in the mind of the pupil a rich and unified impression. Where no distinct aim gives direction to the work, the student is confused by a variety of facts — isolated facts that are displaced by another group of disjointed bits of information. Aimless teaching leads to mental wandering on the part of the student; teaching governed by a definite aim leads to mental development and to the acquisition of new viewpoints and new power. We must distinguish clearly between the general or educational aim and the specific or instructional aim. The former sums up the hope of an entire course or an entire subject. In the teaching of literature we hope to develop a vital interest in reading, a discriminating taste, an enlivened imagination and a quickened perception which enable the student to visualize the situations and to acquire the thought on the printed page. The instructional aim, however, is much more specific; it posits a task that can be accomplished in a very limited time; it seeks to give an insight into Shakespeare's mastery of words, or into his power of character portrayal, or into his methods of enhancing dramatic interest. Each of these two types of aims has its unmistakable influence on methods of teaching. of aims that may What aim should we select to guide us in formulating The variety principles of collegiate teaching? The question is almost basic, for the selection of a proper aim gives color and govern direction to all our teaching. In brief, the aim may be one of the following: (a) The informational aim. A given course in chemistry or physics may be designed to sum up for the student the vital facts necessary for an intelligent comprehension of common phenomena. With such an aim, it is obvious that only so much laboratory work will be assigned as will give the student a general knowledge of the tools and methods of laboratory work; that the major portion of the work will be divided into occasional lectures, regular book assignments, and extensive applications of knowledge gained to surrounding chemical and physical phenomena. A language course may seek to give pupils a stock of words. designed to develop power to read the language in a very short time. Obviously, grammatical work and translations into the mother tongue will now be minimized, and those devices which give the eye the power to find thought in new symbols will be emphasized. There is no standard for determining the relative importance of this informational or utilitarian aim when compared to other aims. The significant thing is, not so much to discover its relative importance, but, having adopted it, to devise methods which clearly tend to bring the students to an effective realization of it. (b) The disciplinary aim. On the other hand, the controlling aim in any subject may be to develop the power to reason about natural phenomena, the power to observe, and the power to discriminate between vital and inconsequential details. If this be the aim, the assignment of subject matter must be reduced, the phenomena teaching studied must be submitted in the forms of problems, firsthand observations must be made, and students must be led to see the errors in their observations and their reasoning. The course which is extensive in subject matter and which relies on the lecture method sacrifices mental discipline for information. From the teaching point of view, the result of the time-honored quarrel between the disciplinists and the utilitarians is not so important as the adoption of a definite aim, and the formulation of consistent methods of teaching in order to attain that aim. Ineffective teaching is not caused by the selection of the one aim or of the other, but by systems of instruction devoid of any aim at all. (c) The appreciative or aesthetic aim. It is obvious that a subject may be taught for the power it develops for æsthetic appreciation of the arts of life. We have here a legitimate aim of coördinate importance with the two preceding ones; and if we adopt it, the vital thing in teaching is to allow this appreciative aim to mold all instructional effort. It is obvious that a college course in æsthetics must be inspirational, must seek to develop a real appreciation of the beauty of line, of color and of sound. Such a course must, therefore, encourage contact with the products of art, rather than promote the study of texts on the history of any of the arts. So, too, courses in music or in literature which do not send the student away with an intense desire to hear, to see, to feel the masterpieces of music or literature must be judged dismal failures. The formalization of an art course given to the general student, kills the live material and leaves the student himself cold. (d) The aim to teach technique. An effective college course may select for its aim the development of the technique of a given subject. It is obvious that a science course governed by this aim will emphasize the laboratory method at the expense of information; that a course in the social sciences will seek to cover less ground but will develop in the student the power to find facts and use them to formulate an intelligent conclusion; that a course in biology will minimize names, classifications and structures, but will emphasize field and laboratory work and the modes of utilizing the data thus discovered. We must repeat the statement made before, that no one can set himself up as the final arbiter of the claims of these contending aims. They are all vitally necessary for a thorough understanding of life's problems. The significant conclusion for teaching is that one or more of these aims must be consciously chosen and that content and method must be determined by them absolutely. Teaching for the sake of teaching consumes time and makes drafts on energy, but it leaves the student no richer in power and with no truer understanding. It is obvious that no general law can be formulated for the adjustment of aims to the needs of students. Teachers have usually found it necessary to change the aim, the content, and the method of a course according to the needs of different classes of students. In one of our colleges science students are required to take two years of Latin. The course offered these young men gives the ordinary drill in grammar, translation, and analysis of Cæsar, Cicero, and Vergil, as well as practice in prose composition in which nondescript and disjointed English sentences, grammatically correct, are turned into incorrect Latin. This description, without any changes whatever, applies also to the course given in the introductory years in Latin to students specializing in the arts. Even a superficial analysis reveals a different set of needs in the two classes of students which can be served only by a corresponding difference in content and mode of teaching. A student who takes French or German because he wants enough mastery of these languages to enable him to read in foreign journals about the progress of his specialty must be given a course which appeals to the eye and minimizes the grammatical and conversational phases of these languages. There are courses that are foundational and that must therefore be governed by an eclectic aim. In the first course in college physics it is obvious that we must teach the necessary facts of the subject as well as its method. These Value of clearly defined aims aspects of the work must be emphasized with equal force for all students; no differentiation need be made for future medical or engineering students or for prospective teachers of the subject in secondary schools. Generally speaking, initial courses in a department are governed by an eclectic aim, but in the advanced courses there must be constant adjustment to the needs of various groups. eclectic aim can be as effective an instrument in enhancing the quality of teaching as a single, clear-cut aim, provided there is a clear recognition of the relative importance of the ends set up, and provided a definite plan is evolved to attain them. The aim or aims of a subject or a lesson, once formulated, must always be kept before the students as well as before the teacher. Every pupil must know the ends to be attained in the course he is taking, and as work progresses he must experience a growing realization that the class is moving toward these ends. The subject matter of the course, the method of instruction, the assigned task, now glow with interest which springs from work clearly motivated. The average student plods through his semester from a sense of duty or obedience rather than from a conviction of the worth of both subject matter and method. Not only must the general aim be indicated to the student, but he must also be made acquainted with the specific aim. Where students have been acquainted with the specific task that must be accomplished in a given period, concentration and coöperation with the instructor are easier; the students can, at stages in the lesson, anticipate succeeding steps; their answers have greater relevancy, their thought is more sequential and flows more readily along the path planned by the instructor. A specific aim for each lesson makes for economy, for it is a standard of relevancy for both student and teacher. The student whose answer or observation is irrelevant is asked to recall the aim of the lesson and to judge the pertinence of his contribution. The instructor given to wandering far afield finds that a |