Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

ticipated is that it will stimulate the teaching of foreign language; since, if successful arrangements can be made, similar student groups will be taken to other countries of Europe and South America.

TEACHING METHODS

Colleges have been as yet little affected by the development of educational theory already commonly applied to instruction in the elementary and secondary schools. At first sight it would seem difficult to account for this fact since these theories have been developed in large part by the schools and colleges of education in the universities. Familiarity with these theories, however, seems to be confined to the professors of education. As a matter of fact the college-teaching profession does not rank teaching with research. College teachers and college administrators, although both would repudiate the attitude, tend to undervalue the man who is more greatly concerned about his teaching problems than about his administrative or research work.

No doubt there is a methodology of college teaching. At any rate there is a considerable body of knowledge in regard to the technique of teaching which is not shared or practiced to any great extent by college professors. Graduate students qualify for college teaching positions upon the basis of research which is only in the slightest degree related to ability to instruct. In fact research work of the type which places students upon the list of eligibles for college employment is frequently of such nature that it unfits for teaching. Perhaps the new Kappa Phi Kappa educational fraternity which has for its purpose interesting men students in education may in the long run have considerable effect upon the attitude toward teaching on the part of the professorial class and lead to greater knowledge of college teaching problems.

Aside from the development of the sabbatical furlough for college professors, which has a somewhat attenuated connection with improvement in college teaching, little positive action has been taken to make college professors better college teachers. It is true that college administrators are pleased when they obtain a good teacher, but they have few means of judging the nature of teaching in their institutions and even less satisfactory standards for determining the teaching ability of new men whom they employ. In this connection protest has been made quite frequently during the biennium that as soon as an institution gets a professor who establishes a reputation for good teaching or leadership in research, he is hired away by some other college. Proposals have been made for enforcing contracts more carefully and for the development of high standards of honor as between institutions in the hope that this practice may be discouraged. These proposals are in part based upon the belief that

rooting an instructor in an institution tends to develop better teaching. Objections to this idea are so obvious that it is hardly necessary to mention them. Extreme manifestation of the belief is afforded by the college president who appealed to a graduate institution for an instructor with a statement to the effect that, although the men previously obtained had been good men, they had been hired away by other institutions, and that he hopes now to secure some one who will stay. Selection and retention of professors upon this plan, means, of course, that a premium is placed upon the employment of mediocre men who do not give promise of developing competition for their services.

SPECIAL HONORS AND DISTINCTIONS

There is a growing tendency to adopt some plan of providing special recognition and distinction for the man who attains a certain ranking throughout his college course and for the man who does extra work. These plans follow in general the old principle of granting the degree cum laude or magna cum laude. One of the most popular recent devices of this kind is based upon what is known as the point system. The plan as adopted at the University of Michigan provides that for each "A" grade three points shall be counted; for each "B" grade two points; "C" grade one point; "D" grade no point; and "E" grade a minus point. For graduation the same number of points as of credits or hours is required. The man whose general average in points is 2.15 or 2.5 is regarded as having attained distinction or high distinction, and his name is frequently put in the catalogue or commencement program under these headings. The point system, of course, insures a kind of reward for meeting faithfully the ordinary requirements, but does not very extensively encourage independent study. When in addition honor points are given for extra technical, educational, or special courses, the result is merely to add to the number of units of regular work without giving the individual an opportunity to do work of a distinctive and personal character. This point plan for rewarding industry and high ranking in the work offered implies the least disturbance to the present standardized series of processes through which a student must pass in order to secure a degree, or it may even imply a belief that these processes are the most useful that can be devised.

Of the same general nature as granting special distinctions to students upon the basis of high rating under the regular system is a tendency to make more difficult the passage from sophomore to junior year or from junior year to the senior. Princeton has undertaken to make passage from the sophomore to the junior year somewhat

more difficult, and this is but one of several instances which depend upon increased difficulty without material change in the work offered or in the methods used, to secure higher scholarship and better training.

HONORS COURSES

Limiting enrollment, selective processes intended to secure students who will profit from training, special orientation courses for freshmen, and maintenance of high course averages all fail to provide adequately for the specially gifted student. They all fail to encourage independent initiative and self-directed work to the point where the scholarly attitude or the power of independent procedure in dealing with new problems is developed. The need is for some method which will induce every student, and especially the gifted ones, to extend themselves to the limit of their abilities. The old methods and courses failed to do this. The commission on faculty and student scholarship of the Association of American Colleges in 1923 reported that, of all the attempts to accomplish these purposes, the honors courses developed in this country by Swarthmore is the best and most promising. The honors courses as developed by Swarthmore and adopted by other institutions, notably Barnard, Carleton, and Smith, are based in fact upon the influence of the English honors courses made familiar to this country through the Rhodes scholarships, Canadian practice, and by closer international student relations. The extent of interest in the plan is evidenced by the fact that President Aydelotte's account of the honors courses as developed at Swarthmore, published by the National Research Council, has been exhausted and a second edition made necessary. At Swarthmore the number of honors students has doubled each year for three years. No single movement in higher education has been given more interest or promises more far-reaching results than this. The course as developed implies independent study on the part of students, less formal relationships with the faculty, and relaxation of attendance upon classes and ordinary class examinations. Honors work is confined to the junior and senior years, in part because freshmen and sophomores require basic work, which in Europe is regarded as secondary. This condition emphasizes and no doubt will contribute to more general and practical acceptance of the fact that the first two years of American college work belong in the secondary school. The development of the junior college will doubtless be hastened through this influence of honors

courses.

Two features of the honors courses have made an appeal to institutions which have not themselves adopted the plan. Several institutions have attempted to extend the privilege of voluntary attendance

upon classes to students who attain certain ratings. Princeton attempted in September, 1923, to extend further its plan of voluntary attendance upon lectures but was compelled to return to its former plan because lectures were entirely deserted. This fact may indicate that the greater part of the instruction now carried on by the lecture method may more easily and quickly be obtained through reading, or it may indicate that those who do not rank high in regular work have not the maturity and development to understand how to manage their own educational progress. Another element of the honors system which makes decided appeal is the comprehensive examination. The honors students at Swarthmore are tested by comprehensive examinations which emphasize the general subject and therefore tend to decrease the importance of the individual course. At Swarthmore these examinations are conducted by men familiar with the fields, who are brought in from outside the institution. A knowledge of the field rather than of the specific courses taken is thus insured. In a sense those who are directing honors work are thus judged along with the students whose work they control. Reed College uses the comprehensive examination at the end of the junior year. Its work is so organized that such an examination is applicable. At Swarthmore the students in the senior class have petitioned that their final examinations be of the comprehensive type. In the opinion of friends of the comprehensive examination this desire on the part of the seniors is regarded as an indication of high educational and intellectual interest. Persons who are not converted to the comprehensive examination contend that ability to organize and present information in a clear and logical manner, which is the main purpose of the comprehensive examination, may be tested just as thoroughly by the ordinary course examination and that in addition the latter tests knowledge and memory of course work. The discussion is valuable in that it is securing much needed attention to the technique of examinations in America.

GRADUATE WORK

The United States has developed a large number of great universities which are famous for their research work. Through a somewhat curious misapprehension of educational purposes, research and greatness have therefore become somewhat confused. Research no doubt is an important means of testing the standing and reputation of a university, but this basis of judgment is carried to an extreme point when it leads practically every university in the United States to base its claims to recognition upon extensive and varied programs of graduate research work. The fact that eligibility for college

employment depends so largely upon research has contributed to this attitude. The results have not been entirely happy.

During and following the World War the demand for college instructors exceeded the supply. Colleges still demanded, however, that their instructors hold higher degrees. As a result, pressure upon graduate institutions to meet this demand aided in the promotion of the already existing tendency to carry over into graduate research work the prevailing undergraduate conception that education consists of completion of courses and compilation of units. It is asserted quite frequently that graduate work is now on the basis of what the graduate student is admitted from and not upon the basis of what he is admitted to. In other words, research is in some of our graduate departments defined largely in terms of undergraduate college education. As someone has expressed it, present graduate work" coddles immaturity." Professor Woodbridge states the case: "Graduate work should not prepare students for advanced degrees but should give them a chance to do something worthy of a degree."

If it is admitted that this situation is justly pictured, it is obvious that considerable reduction may profitably be made in the extent of graduate research work for degrees now carried on in a large number of our universities. It can not be stated too emphatically that this does not imply in the slightest that the value and importance of real research have been exaggerated. On the contrary, it is a plea for extending and raising the standards of research which lead to the higher degrees.

Two proposals have been made recently looking to improvement of the situation with reference to graduate work: First, that institutions specialize in the kind of graduate work to which they devote their resources, thus insuring, in so far as educational expenditures serve to direct research activity, concentration of energy and ability upon limited fields. Beyond question money alone, even money combined with the assembly of large bodies of graduate students, does not provide all the conditions necessary for successful prosecution of highly specialized research. It is thought, however, that specialization as between institutions will attract to each institution leaders of research who will find in the combination of their work and efforts and in the special facilities provided a happy ground for work of the highest type. A second suggestion made, which is in no way contradictory to the first, is that a greater degree of cooperation in research work as between higher institutions be developed. Several examples of such cooperative research during the period are of special note. The Modern Language Association Research, for instance, in which 35 research groups are cooperating, is pointed to as a conclusive argument for such procedure. Cooperation in research

« AnteriorContinuar »