As yet we are notably lacking in regard to the measurement of progress as the result of our teaching. Our usual tests—examination, recitation, quiz, reports, laboratory notebooks—evaluate in a measure work done, knowledge or general grasp acquired, and accuracy developed. We need, however, measurements of skill, of habits, and of the still more intangible attitudes and appreciations. These may be gained in part by furnishing really educative situations and observing the time and character of the student's reaction. Every true teacher is in reality an experimental psychologist, and must apply directly the methods of the psychologist.
More vital tests of results of teaching must be found
The laboratory and field furnish opportunity for this sort of testing. The student may be confronted with an unfamiliar organism or situation and be given a limited time in which to obtain and record his results. He may be asked to state and enumerate the problems that are suggested by the situation; outline a method of solving them; discover as large a body of facts as possible; arrange them in an order that seems to him logical, with his reasons; and to make whatever inferences seem to him sound in the light of facts,—supporting his conclusions at every point. The ability to make such a total mental reaction promptly and comprehendingly is the best test of any teaching whatsoever. The important thing is that we shall not ourselves lose sight of the essential parts of it in our enthusiasm for one portion of it.
In judging attitude and appreciation I think it is possible for discriminating teachers to obtain the testimony of the pupil himself in appraisal of his own progress and attitude. This needs to be done indirectly, to be sure. The student's self-judgment may not be accurate; but it is not at all impossible to secure a disposition in students to measure and estimate their own progress in these various things with some accuracy and fairness of mind. Besides its incidental value as a test, I know of no realm of biological observation, discrimination, and conclusion more likely to prove profitable to the student than this effort to estimate, without prejudice, his own growth.
The Literature of the Subject
Scarcity of authoritative pedagogical literature in biology
For various reasons very little attention has been given to the pedagogy of college biology by those in the best position to throw light upon this vital problem. More information as to the attitude of teachers of the subject is to be derived from college and university catalogs than elsewhere,—howbeit of a somewhat stereotyped and standardized kind. Much more has been written relative to the teaching of biology in the secondary schools. In my opinion the most effective teaching of biology in America today is being done in the best high schools by teachers who have been forced to acquire a pedagogical background that would enable them to reconstruct completely their presentation of the subject. Most of these people obtained very little help in this task from their college courses in biology. For these reasons every college teacher will greatly profit by studying what has been written for the secondary teachers. School Science and Mathematics (Chicago) is the best source for current views in this field. Its files will show no little of the best thought and investigation that have been devoted to the principles underlying instruction in biology. Lloyd and Bigelow, in The Teaching of Biology (Longmans, Green & Co.), have treated the problems of secondary biology at length. Ganong's Teaching Botanist (The Macmillan Company) has high value.
The authors of textbooks of biology, botany, and zoölogy issued during the last ten years have ventured to develop, in their prefaces, appendices, and elsewhere, their pedagogical points of view. The writer has personal knowledge that teaching suggestions are still resented by some college teachers of zoölogy. Illustrations of the tendency to incorporate pedagogical material in textbooks on biological subjects can be found in
Dodge, C. W. Practical Biology. Harper and Brothers, 1894.
Gager, C. S. Fundamentals of Botany. P. Blakiston's Son & Co., 1916.