Chapter XV. Summary and Conclusions

Foremost among the needs of the teacher-training units of the land-grant institutions is the provision of greatly increased facilities for scientific and semiscientific study of the field of professional education, and for the intensive and continuous dissemination of the findings of such study among the teacher trainers themselves. In addition to the results of such studies, teacher trainers should continue to utilize the findings of the educational philospher, as well as of the subject-matter specialists, public-school officials, administrators, supervisors teachers, expert curriculum builders, educational psychologists, and all the other sources from which the field of professional education has drawn its materials during recent years.

The new field of professional education is in a stage of rapid development. Traditional offerings and activities are being rapidly adapted to changing public-school needs. Only provisions for continuously increasing and improving the subject-matter and activity content of teacher-training courses will enable the trainers of teachers to keep abreast of their responsibilities.

The means by which the teacher-training program in land-grant institutions may best be maintained on a high level of effectiveness and good practice, or by which advancement of existing practices to higher levels may be attained, appear on the basis of the evidence available to be as follows:

1. More carefully defined and more scientifically validated objec tives for teacher preparation in the institutions should be established. Existing analyses of the activities of the teachers in service, as determined by the life needs of pupils, should be used as the starting point for intensive study and research to the end that institutions may set up offerings that will best train teachers for the jobs they actually will have to do in the public schools. Offerings and activities should be based upon a thoroughgoing analysis of the needs of teachers in the territory served by the institution. This involves provision for extensive programs of investigation and research concerning the needs within each State or region.

2. Study should be undertaken of the conditions of supply and demand in each State and redirection of institutional activity made in the light of the findings secured. In many institutions redirection of institutional emphasis from academic offerings to wider vocational, nonacademic, and special fields is desirable. A progres

sive program for the extension of graduate work to provide for the training of teachers on graduate levels must be provided in States now employing high-school teachers trained on such levels. Increased needs for teachers of vocational subjects, for which there is no prospect of an immediate oversupply, will result from recent increases in Federal subsidies. These needs must be met. Cooperation with State departments of education and with other teachertraining institutions should be increased to the end that steadily advancing standards in the training of teachers be maintained, and the continued oversupply of poor teaching material reduced.

3. The services of the land-grant institutions to public schools of the State should be rounded out by the extension and professionalization of the work of placement bureaus so that their services to the institutions may be extended in respect to revision of curricula, the selection of trainees, effective placement of graduates, follow-up of graduates on the job, and discovery and interpretation of the needs of public school employing officials.

4. The existing concept in some institutions of the preparation of teachers as an incidental function of the academic work in arts and sciences or of the technical work in agriculture, home economics, or similar subjects must be replaced by the concept of teacher preparation as a professional activity worth while in itself, and comparable in importance to the work of the other professional schools of the institution. The doubling of the enrollments of the State teachers colleges during the past 10 years, despite the handicaps faced by such institutions, should be significant to administrative officials of land-grant institutions who aspire to leadership in training publicschool teachers.

5. In general, the present professional relationships of teachertraining units with Federal and State agencies set up to administer Federal funds are satisfactory, but the professional assistance rendered the local institutions by State and Federal agencies might well be extended. Additional cooperation between State departments of education and the teacher-preparing units is desirable in respect to such matters as cooperative study of certification requirements, the regulation of the production of an oversupply of poor candidates for teaching positions, and educational research and study undertaken in the institutions.

Opportunities for further professional service to the public schools of the States could be utilized to much greater extent by a number of land-grant institutions, in respect to public-school surveys and cooperative projects undertaken with the public schools. More effective cooperation with local public-school systems, community organizations, and other local agencies would be of benefit in a number of land-grant institutions.

6. The decided movement during recent years to unify administratively and professionally the separated teacher-training activities prevalent in land-grant institutions should be continued with vigor. The administrative organization of teacher training in many institutions is admittedly chaotic. In each institution a centralized authority or agency for the coordination of teacher training should be set up if such authority or agency has not yet been provided. Any organization set up should be established with the sole aim of advancing the professional education of teachers; its powers should be extensive enough to enable it to perform its functions with the maximum efficiency. Such organization will, of necessity, render more satisfactory the performance of functions such as the determination of curricular content taken by prospective teachers, selection of training staffs, control over the professional advisement of trainees, control over student teaching facilities, placement of graduates, and all the other professional activities bearing specifically upon the professional' preparation and placement of teachers.

7. In view of the fact that from 25 to 75 per cent of the graduates of the colleges or divisions of arts and science, agriculture, home economics, industrial education, the graduate school, and other units of the land-grant institutions enter teaching, financial support of teacher training should be more definitely and amply provided. Such data as are at hand indicate that the present financial support of teacher training is not adequate and that it may well be extended in keeping with recent intensive and extensive development of the field of public education as a whole.

8. The material needs of the teacher-training units in respect to physical plant, housing, and equipment have been generally provided for in keeping with the general provisions for the institutions as a whole. Improvements desired are the provision of classrooms better suited to instructional purposes, better service facilities affecting the material conditions under which staff members work, the provision of conveniently grouped classrooms, and further provision of well-equipped rooms for special methods classes. These improvements are desirable in a number of the institutions. Especially necessary is the provision in many institutions of a campus training school for practice and experimental purposes. In the larger institutions the provision of a separate building for the school or college of education is desirable when plant facilities permit. In smaller institutions classrooms, laboratories, offices, special rooms, and the training school should be grouped in convenient proximity whenever possible.

9. Since the most important element of any educational program is the instruction staff, improvements in the applications of the

teacher-training staff will advance the whole teacher-preparing program more rapidly than any other means. The general level of training, experience, and personal qualifications of teachers of education, except those in the training schools, compare favorably with that of other institutional staff members. It is well recognized, however, that the land-grant institutions must continue to provide for raising the level of qualifications of all staff members as rapidly as financial means permit.

10. Teachers of courses in education do not yet compare favorably with teachers in other major fields in respect to their professional training in the field of their specialty. The median of one year's training of staff members in professional education is less than one-half year more than that of the average graduate of teacher-training curricula in land-grant institutions. Teachers of education should have more than one semester's work in professional education above that of the prospective teachers whom they instruct. Progress in this respect may rapidly be attained by insisting upon more training in professional education on the part of entrants into positions on the education staff. This need is especially marked in the nonacademic or special teacher-training units. and to a somewhat less extent in the vocational teacher-training units.

Outstanding among needs for the improvement of qualifications of staff members in professional education is improvement in the training of demonstration and supervising teachers, and increased requirements for wider public-school and training-school experience for such instructors.

11. Rapidly rising standards for teachers in the public schools necessitate numerous institutional provisions for management of student personnel to meet these standards. Hence, the development and use of selective measures based on scholarship marks in high school and college, tests of personality and related traits, intelligence tests, health examinations, and similar means is highly desirable. Institutional provisions for guidance of prospective teachers in respect to the best fields of educational work to enter, the courses to take, extracurricular activities in which to participate, and positions for which to apply should be extended. Coordination of teacher-training activities within the institution will assist in rendering such provisions more effective. Provisions for the upbuilding of professional attitudes on the part of young trainees should be provided: For instance, education clubs, honorary education fraternities, and other similar student organizations should be more frequently established and more vigorously conducted.

12. The needs of prospective public-school teachers should be given more consideration in the instructional work in technical and academic subject-matter fields. Such content should be whenever possible, selected, arranged, and organized with the needs of prospective teachers always in mind. In most institutions training in two or three fields of subject matter rather than primarily in one is desirable in order to meet the needs of the high schools for teachers of combination subjects. Curricular emphasis on subjects for which there is little demand for teachers, should be lessened in keeping with the needs of the public schools. At least some professional association should be maintained whenever possible with the arts and science or technical courses taken by prospective teachers. Such relationship may be cooperative in nature but should be none the less effective.

13. Courses in professional education are susceptible of great improvement. Such improvement should follow increasing research and experimentation. No one is sure how much professional work should be required, nor has any exact measure of its value been devised. Stabilization of content in such courses has not yet been attained. Variations in course requirements are too large. Course nomenclature is confusing. Sequences in courses taken are not sufficiently uniform. Undesirable duplications in content of courses exist. Present wide divergencies in requirements and practices in respect to educational courses should be continued only for the purpose of controlled experimentation.

14. Programs of curricular study and revision, either institutional or cooperative, should be undertaken much more vigorously in the land-grant institutions so that knowledge of the best curricular offerings and practices so far attained may be more readily disseminated among the teacher-training staffs.

15. One of the greatest needs of the teacher-training units of the land-grant institutions is more adequate provision for training school facilities. Student teaching is commonly considered the center about which many teacher-training activities should revolve. It is an expensive element of the teacher-training program, but one which offers perhaps greater returns than any other professional course. In general, requirements in student teaching should be increased. This involves further provision for student teaching facilities; whenever possible a campus teaching school should be established in connection with the use of typical public schools for practice.

Typically, institutional control over public schools utilized for practice is entirely inadequate. Undirected observation should be largely dispensed with. Better gradation of the course is desirable.