Responding to a widely expressed discontent about college teaching shared by students, faculty and administrators, representatives of national professional and higher educational associations formed a committee to study means of revitalizing and reorienting instruction. Each contributor in Volume III, selected for his outstanding teaching skills in the social sciences, examines current trends in teaching in his discipline, offers a critical review of the principal methods used, and provides pertinent bibliographical references. Russell M. Cooper's Introduction notes the impossibility of prescribing any single method of improving teaching and calls for reflection and self-criticism by the teacher. In "The Task of the Teacher in the Social Sciences", Kenneth Boulding stresses the sensitivity of the subject--an insight echoed in the other papers. Because the subject matter is so broad-- dealing with people's daily economic, political and social lives--it is controversial and the choice of topics or activities has strong ethical implications. Leonard J. Fine's "Teaching Political Science" also expresses the difficulty in sustaining the distinction between social science as a mode of analysis and as a way of life. Henry Cord Meyer, a historian, talks about the effect of recent social change on course content and students. In "The Teaching of Psychology" Robert B. MacLeod poses a series of questions on which he comments to the beginning teacher of psychology. (JS)
- Authorizing Institution
- American Association for Higher Education, Washington, DC.
- Peer Reviewed
- F
- Published in
- United States of America
- Sponsor
- Office of Education (DHEW), Washington, DC. Bureau of Research.
