WHAT COUNTS AS TEACHING?

AID — the acronym stands for Assessment for Instructional Development — is a behaviourally referenced class questionnaire developed by the author from a data base drawn from 12 institutions of HE (Polytechnics and Universities). It is intended to help the user locate

• objectives in their own progress towards which his students report they lack confidence

• teaching behaviours that seem to bear on these objectives

• changes of teaching strategy that may therefore help the students

AID is focussed on the individual class and subject discipline — it is not suitable for ‘accountability’ uses.

The paper describes the rationale for choosing a behaviourally referenced system (focussed on what teachers and students do or feel, and how often) rather than a ‘satisfaction scale’ (focussed on ‘do my students like me?'), and the way AID was developed from earlier, mainly North American behaviourally referenced systems, such as IDEA. Crucial changes in research methodology are explained and justified. The characteristics and capabilities of the developed system are then outlined, and how to use it is explained. Finally, illustrations are given of three typical uses of the system — a comparison of three elements in a part‐time course for use by the course team in a course review, and two analyses of particular teaching programmes for individual lecturers.     

Identifying transcendence in educating for public service: reflections on qualifying to teach as a pedagogic example

In this critically reflective piece, I describe the design of a foundations of education course and my first year teaching experience. I discuss thematic statements of issues that emerged as I came to construct the meaning of my experience and evolving ideas about teaching for public service professions. These included that:

• Questioning is not ‘normal’ for everyone;

• The experience of classroom safety may be different for student participants than for teacher participants;

• Reflection is a situated responsibility; and

• Assessment and authority interact within the context of learning in a formal classroom.

Discussing these issues helped me in framing teaching for public service as itself a transcendent public act, one that crosses boundaries of time and space and that requires embodied, rather than idealistic, understandings of qualifying to teach.     

Personality Ability and Achievement in Primary School Children

This study investigated the relationship of personality, ability and school achievement. The findings here were that:

1. intelligence is the major determinant of school achievement;

2. bright children tend to come from smaller families than dull children;

3. relatively unstable children have a better level of school achievement than stable children;

4. extraversion‐introversion had no effect on school achievement.

     

KINDERET: developing training for early childhood educators in information and communications technology (ICT) in Bulgaria,England, Portugal,Spain and Sweden

In the European context the continuing training of early childhood educators in terms of information and communications technology (ICT) remains limited and is in need of development. The KINDERET project has been funded through the European Commission’s Leonardo da Vinci programme aimed to identify and understand the theoretical and practical needs of practitioners and is developing course materials to support the development of courses (see www.eseb.ipbeja.pt/kinderet). The KINDERET project has therefore been structured according to five main objectives, namely to:

• identify and understand the theoretical and practical needs of kindergarten teachers with regard to ICT education;

• establish plans for the training of educators, in the application of ICT;

• develop interactive learning materials for educators in order to support the established plans for continuing training in ICT;

• implement pilot training schemes and promote transnational collaboration between tutors and students through the use of ICTs;

• evaluate the pilot training schemes.

In the framework of these overall aims set by the KINDERET project, this paper reports upon the joint work that was developed by the partnership as the first stage of analysis in the training needs of kindergarten teachers. The analysis of the information that was collected at this stage has provided an empirical basis for the development of the pilot training schemes.     

INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF UNIVERSITY OPERATIONS ‐ THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

The Annual Conference of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) entitled “The Changing Conditions within the Universities” was held from 1 to 4 November 1976 in Regina.

The meeting mainly concentrated on the following issues:

• participation of the AUCC in public policy on higher education and research

• problems facing the research community in Canada

• the status of women in universities

An important part of the conference was cax'ried out in the form of workshops which had the following themes:

• the problems of ahanging growth rates

• the nature and level of university research

• international aspects of university operations

• graduate education

• the future of the community of scholars

• the evaluation of performance in the university

• continuing education

The below article is based on papers presented at the meeting devoted to the international aspects of university operations in Canada.

The traditional role of universities throughout the world has always been to:

• safeguard and preserve knowledge

• impart and disseminate knowledge

• expand the frontiers of knowledge

To this list was recently added a fourth dimension, which, implicitely, has always existed, namely:

• to contribute to the cultural, social and economic development of society

     

INTERNATIONAL ASPECTS OF UNIVERSITY OPERATIONS ‐ THE CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

The Annual Conference of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) entitled “The Changing Conditions within the Universities” was held from 1 to 4 November 1976 in Regina.

The meeting mainly concentrated on the following issues:

• participation of the AUCC in public policy on higher education and research;

• problems facing the research community in Canada;

• the status of women in universities;

An important part of the conference was carried out in the form of workshops which had the following themes: ‐ the problems of changing growth rates;

• the nature and level of university research;

• international aspects of university operations;

• graduate education;

• the future of the community of scholars;

• the evaluation of performance in the university;

• continuing education.

The below article is based on papers presented at the meeting devoted to the international aspects of university operations in Canada.     

COUNCIL OF EUROPE S SYMPOSIUM REPORT ON DISTANT STUDY SYSTEMS

We give below information based on the final report (February 1976) of the Symposium organized by the Council of Europe's Committee for Higher Education and Research on “The student in distant study systems” (Tübingen, 6‐10 October 1975). The Symposium dealt with such problems as:

• definition of distant studies

• the social image of the distant student (society's appreciation, acceptance etc.)

• the reasons behind the introduction of distant study

• students’ situation in this form of study

• planning and organization, of distant study courses

• functions of distant study courses

• interaction between tutors and students;

• construction of study materials for distant study;

• methods and media;

• research on and development of distant study.

• the future programme of the Committee.

     

Experimenting with group work

Summary

In order for group analysis to be successful and to achieve the atmosphere which allows student cooperation to flourish, it is essential that adequate physical and financial resources are provided. These can be summarized as follows:

• (i)Adequate budget to allow for expenditure on models, visual materials, acquisition of background information, etc.

• (ii)Secretarial staff for typing and administration

• (iii)Laboratory technicians

• (iv)Visual aid staff

• (v)All resources available to the industrialist viz: information library, telephone, typing, stationery, workspace, storage, etc.

• (vi)The active cooperation of academic and technical staff

• (vii)Flexibility in timetabling and room allocations

• (viii)Seminar members who will command the respect of the students and will readily adapt to role playing where necessary

• (ix)Studio masters who are totally committed to the group analysis method of teaching and are, therefore, willing to allot substantial proportions of their time to student consultation

• (x)A cooperative administrative staff.

It is not difficult to provide such resources to make a new experience for a considerable number of college administrators and teachers alike.     

Wastage and incentives in vocational evening classes

Summary

• A.Drawbacks to attending evening classes

• (i) In the group of students investigated the main drawback to attending evening classes was item 3 (the rush to get to classes from work).

• (ii) The main difference among the students was in the importance attached to item 9 (domestic commitments), married students finding it as important as item 3.

• (iii) Choices made by students in different courses were fairly homogeneous, apart from the domestic courses. This seems to indicate that the factors making for wastage are not functions of the courses taken, so much as of age, sex, marital status, etc.

• B. Incentives to attending evening classes

• (i) The main incentive was item 1 (it will be useful in getting a better job).

• (ii) Items 2 (it will help in getting promotion in my present job) and 3 (it will be of general educational value) were ranked next in importance to item 1.

• (iii) Responses to the preferred items 1, 2, and 3 were relatively homogeneous when the data were arranged to isolate sex difference, marital status, and age.

• (iv) All courses except the domestic ones made similar choices in this question.

The great importance of item 3 in question 13 (the rush to get to classes from work) as a disincentive in the group investigated (and in the try-out group) and in the research of Smith and Wilkins, suggest that local arrangements between employers and colleges to give more time between work and classes would attack one of the most accessible, and at the same time most important, causes of wastage.     

Agricultural development; Opportunities and threats for farmers and implications for extension organisations

Abstract

In many countries agriculture is in a process of rapid change,

• - it has to meet a growing demand for food in a sustainable way,

• - the international competition is increasing,

• - the increase in labour productivity is decreasing the employment opportunities in agriculture,

• - agricultural research is offering many new opportunities to increase productivity,

• - government price support for agricultural products in industrial countries is decreasing.

These changes have many implications for agricultural extension, such as:

• - the knowledge and capabilities of farmers has become a major factor in their ability to compete in national and international markets,

• - advice is not only needed on the adoption of new technologies, but also on many other decisions farmers have to make, such as the choice of their farming system and the decision whether or not to earn an income from outside agriculture,

• - this requires a change in extension methods and in the information sources extension agents use,

• - agricultural development demands painful changes in the way of farming and of living for many farm families. It is a challenge for extension agencies to help farm families to realise this,

• - a major task for leaders of extension organisations is to manage a process of change in agricultural extension. Often the role extension has to play in agricultural development can not be performed by one extension organisation, but only by a pluralistic extension system.

Agricultural extension is often expected to contribute to a reduction of poverty among farmers and farm labourers. One has to think seriously how one can realise this objective.     

Wastage: Natural,built-in and imposed

Summary

• 1.Wastage is a characteristic of all forms of further education, full-time and part-time.

• 2.Wastage can be defined in more than one way, and the severest definitions obviously include amongst the wastage many students who have benefited from their participation in further education.

• 3.Failure rates from first to final year in English Universities are at least 10 per cent on the average, to which have to be added the group—some 5 per cent—who withdrew for reasons other than academic failure. This gives an average total wastage of 15 per cent, from first to final year.

• 4.Even in the relatively superior conditions of university life and teaching, precise prognostication is not possible; therefore, either some failures must be admitted or some who would succeed must be excluded. To eliminate failures altogether would mean applying selection procedures that would exclude large numbers of those who now succeed.

• 5.Wastage is a product of multiple causation. Hence, there are no simple or sweeping remedies. On the other hand, such success as is achieved remains unknown because it is not recorded and published.

• 6.Wastage in technical education can be classified into three sorts: natural, built-in and imposed.

• 7.Natural wastage is largely, if not entirely, irremediable (in the given conditions). It is valuable to identify it, important to estimate its size and sensible to devote to other causes efforts to improve the situation. It seems likely that natural wastage amounts to something like 25 per cent of the entrants to a five year part-time course—although there is no evidence of a convincing kind to support any particular figure.

• 8.Built-in wastage is a feature of part-time technical courses. It could very easily be much reduced. The place to begin is with craft courses which are not hedged in by so many Rules and such powerful vested interests as are the National Certificates. The steps to take are simple, and are within the competence of Principals and Heads of Department. The examination results now available annually should be used differently; in particular, the results in the ‘noncrucial’ years should not, in general, preclude students from passing on to the next year of the course. Gross built-in wastage on the average five-year course amounts to 70 per cent or so, having allowed an off-set for students who repeat a year.

• 9.It will be seen that 70 per cent built-in wastage plus 25 per cent natural wastage amounts to 95 per cent wastage over a five-year course. A success rate of 5 per cent in such courses is often exceeded—it may rise to 25 per cent, but a success rate even lower is by no means unknown, though the recording of some such instances by Lady Williams appears to have shocked many of her readers.

• 10.The advantage of going through a course may be quite real to a student who does not gain a certificate. Presumably this is truer of craft courses than of other courses.

• 11.Imposed wastage is remediable to some extent, though not perhaps as completely as might be hoped. At present there is much emphasis on selection, and it is most desirable that selection procedures should be improved.

• 12.Even more important as an antidote to imposed wastage is an improved teaching force: improved in numbers and quality. This is not to say that teaching in technical colleges is bad—far from it. There always have been excellent teachers in technical colleges and their numbers have grown hearteningly since 1945. Nor is it to say that the need is for more graduates or more teachers with second degrees—although such are most welcome. What is needed is greater total numbers of teachers and far more whose main interests are in their pupils, in the difficulties of their pupils, in teaching rather than in scholarship. Senior lecturers promoted to that position because they are good teachers, because they are educationists, are more important to a college than those elevated on the strength of the letters after their names. Both kinds are valuable. Some splendid fellows are themselves of both kinds.

• 13.In approaching any particular problem of wastage, it is necessary to know, or to estimate, how much is natural, how much built-in, how much imposed. Obviously the built-in wastage figure needs breaking down. It includes the out-and-out duds and slackers, a small number, probably no more than 2 per cent or 3 per cent over a five-year wastage of 70 per cent. It includes also the weak and doubtful who just don't make the grade—perhaps 7 per cent or 8 per cent more. And it includes a fair number affected by imposed wastage in its many forms—perhaps 25 per cent. The breakdown in a five-year wastage of 95 per cent in a part-time course might then take the form:

Where wastage in such a course amounts to 75 per cent of the first-year entrants, and on the assumption that natural wastage is at the same rate in all such courses, the total wastage might be classified as follows:

No validity is claimed for these figures. They are presented to sharpen the idea that an attack on wastage can only be made if it is known what is being attacked. For example on this analysis, in a five-year course with 75 per cent wastage, improved selection could only hope to affect a proportion of the imposed wastage plus the weaklings, i.e. a proportion of 25 per cent of the total wastage of 75 per cent. A somewhat higher proportion of this 25 per cent wastage could probably be prevented by improved teaching.

• 14.The need for enquiries and research into these problems is acute. Much information is available, and ready for analysis. On the other hand, on some problems nothing at all has been done and no information exists. For instance, no college, so far as is known, has systematically followed up the part-time students of one year who do not enrol for a succeeding year. Such an enquiry, done over one or two typical National Certificate and craft courses might be illuminating.

• 15.The price paid for a part-time system of education includes a high wastage rate. As long as part-time education goes on, wastage will be very high. As a route to a major qualification—professional or craft—part-time education is a wasteful anachronism; in its purely evening form it should be abolished immediately.

     

A SURVEY OF INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION RESEARCHES

The article draws attention to severe faults in the design of the Oxford (1960) enquiry into Arts/Science specialization. Research since then (recently reviewed by Lewis, 1972) has not been unanimous in refuting the hypothesis that the most able pupils are one‐sided in their subject interests.

Evidence is offered on specialization and related issues from recent surveys (1970, ‘71 and ‘72) of the great majority of upper sixth formers in Northumberland. Findings included the following.

1. Subject choice at Advanced level is largely felt to be freely made rather than enforced.

2. Attitudes to wider courses are adverse rather than favourable.

3. High ability pupils are relatively concentrated in specialist courses, particularly the Sciences.

4. Many specialist pupils have a very wide range of achievement at Ordinary level.

5. The more able pupils make earlier subject choice decisions than the weaker: Science specialists show earliest decision times.

6. Subject choice is seen as easy rather than difficult by three‐fifths of the sample pupils, and by three‐quarters of Science specialists.

7. Science subjects are perceived, by either sex, as more closely interrelated than Arts subjects.

8. Mathematics is unusual in that it consistently attracts higher rates of dislike than other subjects, though four‐fifths of those taking it would still select it if a choice had to be made again.

9. Definitions of ‘specialization’ need reconsideration.

     

34th MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE COMMITTEE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

The 34th meeting of the Council of Europe Committee for Higher Education and Research was held in Strasbourg from 3 to 5 November 1976.

The main points raised in discussions were as follows:

• the current situation and trends in tertiary education;

• the recognition of degrees and diplomas;

• the future existence of the Committee for Higher Education and Research;

• the current situation and trends in university research;

• the teaching of human rights;

• mobility of higher education staff and students;

• the future programme of the Committee.

The information presented below concentrates on some of the above points.     

34th MEETING OF THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE COMMITTEE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH

The 34th meeting of the Council of Europe Committee for Higher Education and Research was held in Strasbourg from 3 to 5 November 1976.

The main points raised in discussions were as follows:

• the current situation and trends in tertiary education;

• the recognition of degrees and diplomas;

• the future existence of the Committee for Higher Education and Research;

• the current situation and trends in university research;

• the teaching of human rights;

• mobility of higher education staff and students;

• the future programme of the Committee.

The information presented below concentrates on some of the above points.     

Some comments on the curriculum for training teachers for the primary school system in Bendel State Nigeria

This study was designed to determine the adequacy of the quality of training in terms of the programme of studies offered to the teacher‐trainees in Bendel State, Nigeria, in preparation for their role as primary school teachers. When the content of the training was evaluated against the general aims and objectives for teacher‐education in Nigeria and the objectives of primary education, it was found that:

• The aims and objectives for teacher‐education at the teachers’ grade II level in Nigeria are not sufficiently plausible to facilitate their meaningful translation into concrete and observable actions.

• The grade II teacher‐trainees are not adequately equipped, in terms of the content of their training, to discharge their responsibilities effectively in order that the objectives of primary education may be realized.

It is, therefore, suggested that teacher education at the level under consideration demands a new direction whereby the trainees will be equipped with appropriate skills, knowledge, attitudes and values.     

Transformations in higher education in agricultural and food sciences in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Current changes in agricultural and food science higher education in Central and Eastern Europe are interesting for the analysis of the repercussions of post communist economic and social transition, particularly in the adaptation and restructuring of scientific and technical education.

Using an institutional approach and referring to their experiences of these educational systems, the authors provide a Western view of current transformations and areas of development of higher education in agricultural and food sciences in the countries concerned. The emergence of a new social demand and of new systems of access to employment implies re-evaluation and adaptation of former training models. The authors suggest that the current reflection on the question should focus on three key issues:

• -redefinition of the role and function of managers in the agricultural and food economic sector;

• -replacement of a production-oriented approach by a more comprehensive approach to the problem of rural development;

• -recognition of the educational value of biological sciences as both models and tools for the acquisition of knowledge and the management of complex systems.

     

Teacher Training in Educational Technology in Rumania

Abstract

This paper deals with four aspects of teacher training in educational technology:

• general information on the education system in Rumania

• teacher training in the utilization of educational media

• teacher training with a view to the improvement of teaching‐learning systems

• teacher training in the new information and communication technologies

In each of these areas of teacher training, the problems and perspectives related to developments of educational technology are considered.     

Culture and equality in education

The advent of comprehensive education implies a search for a common culture, or a common treatment of culture, across the whole school population. This article reviews the present stage in this search, attempting to define a suitable treatment of culture by secondary schools. The history of schools’ treatment of cultural sources is briefly invoked, particularly the differences in treatment found in grammar and secondary modern schools. Purportedly progressive attitudes to ‘formal’ or ‘high’ culture are analysed and found to be too simplistic. Traditional education is shown not to have genuinely served its own’ supposed cultural aims, whilst progressives’ rejection to those aims is shown to be inadequate as a reaction to what traditional education actually did rather than claimed to do. It is proposed that a more engaged approach to formal culture, involving critical receptivity, is appropriate for all pupils, and would also require the nourishment of a more receptive attitude to pupils’ own creativity.

Since we have liberated the term ‘culture’ from meaning merely a rarified level of works of art, it has become so all‐embracing as to be almost unmanageable. Influenced by anthropology, we now tend to think of culture as extending to the most casual level of value and idea by which we live our daily lives. It even includes our most informal language habits.

The difficulty, of course, with such an all‐embracing notion is that it makes the subject almost impossible to talk about. Criteria of quality , and currency are blurred. Part of the same confusion is that the education system, formerly seen as the custodian of ‘culture’, now has no name for the special resources of knowledge which are ‐‐ or used to be ‐‐ its particular responsibility.

I will use culture here to mean those public works or activities which represent man to himself and are value laden. Thus literature, psychology, history, philosophy, politics, law, economics and sociology would all be included. They might have scientific elements but they still convey normative images of man.

If the concept of culture itself, even as so defined, has a blunt edge, we must discriminate elements within it in order to make the area susceptible to discussion. To get a picture of how schools, traditionally, have mediated culture, we must distinguish at least five broad elements:

1. formal, by which is meant that part in which academic and professional institutions specialize;

2. informal, meaning relatively spontaneous and non‐centralized activities, including ordinary conversation;

3. mass culture, such as films, television, popular music, advertising;

4. avant‐garde culture, arising out of a sense of crisis in the formal culture; and

5. ethnic, other than that which coincides with the content of previous categories.

These are pretty crude categories, but they are a little better than such common divisions as ‘high/low’, ‘popular/serious’ and ‘traditional/contemporary’, and they permit some analysis of relationships between different elements within our culture as a whole.     

Education and early factory inspectors

Summary

The early history of factory inspection in this country shows that:

• (1) voluntary submission to inspection could not be counted on;

• (2) local forms of inspection were completely ineffective;

• (3) a strong central government inspectorate was much more effective but made mistakes in its formative years;

• (4) the absence of any tradition of schooling and all that went with it added to the great educational responsibilities imposed upon the factory inspector;

• (5) some influence may be traced in negative and positive ways upon Her Majesty's inspectors of schools.