TENTATIVE OUTLINE FOR THE TEACHING OF —— IN THE COLLEGE
I. Aim of Subject X in the College Curriculum:
Is it taught for disciplinary values? What are they?
Is it taught for cultural reasons?
Is it taught to give necessary information?
Is it taught to prepare for professional studies?
Is the aim single or eclectic? Do the aims vary for different groups
of students? Does this apply to all the courses in your specialty?
How does the aim govern the methods of teaching?
II. Place of the Subject in the College Curriculum:
In what year or years should it be taught?
What part of the college course—in terms of time or credits
—should be allotted to it?
What is the practice in other colleges?
What course or courses in this subject should be part of the
general curriculum or be prescribed for students in art, in
science, in modern languages, or in the preprofessional or
professional groups?
III. Organization of the Subject in the College Course:
Desired sequence of courses in this subject.
What is the basis of this sequence? Gradation of successive
difficulties or logical sequence of facts?
Should these courses be elective or prescribed? All prescribed?
For all groups of students?
In what years should the elective work be offered?
IV. Discussion of Methods of Teaching this Subject:
Place and relative worth of lecture method, laboratory work,
recitations, research, case method, field work, assignment from
a single text or reference reading, etc.
Discussion of such problems as the following:
Shall the first course in chemistry be a general and extensive
course summing up the scope of chemistry, its function in
organic and inorganic nature, with no laboratory work
other than the experimentation by the instructor?
Should students in the social sciences study the subject
deductively from abook or should the book be postponed
and the instructor present a series of problems from the
social life of the student so that the analysis of these may
lead the student to formulate many of the generalizations
that are given early in a textbook course?
Should college mathematics be presented as a series of
subjects, e.g., algebra advanced), solid geometry,
trigonometry, analytical geometry, calculus, etc.? Would it
be better to present the subject as a single and unified
whole in two or three semesters?
Should a student study his mathematics as it is developed in
his book,—viz.,as an intellectual product of a matured
mind familiar with the subject,—or should the subject
grow gradually in a more or less unorganized form from
a series of mechanical, engineering, building, nautical,
surveying, and structural problems that can be found in the
life and environment of the student?
V. Moot Questions in the Teaching of this Subject.
VI. How judge whether the subject has been of worth to the
student?
How test whether the aims of this subject have been realized?
How test how much the student has carried away? What means,
methods, and indices exist aside from the traditional
examination?
VII. Bibliography on the Pedagogy of this Subject as Far as It
Applies to College Teaching. The aim of the bibliography
should be to give worth-while contributions that present
elaborations of what is here presented or points of view
and modes of procedure that differ from those here set forth.
Paul Klapper
The College of the City of New York