This book is designed to help teachers critically assess major ideas about what teaching is and should be. Using both classical and contemporary perspectives, three basic approaches to teaching are offered, and the strengths and weaknesses of each are explored. The "executive approach" views the teacher as an executor, using the best learning…

This study sought to describe, at the level of practice, one teacher's use of humanism in the classroom. Methods of participant observation were used to capture reflective contrasts between the subject's intended behavior (by formal and informal interviews), actual behavior (by direct observation), and ideal behavior (by readings from humanist…

The concept of collaborative learning is discussed, with the following definition offered: "a pedagological style that emphasizes cooperative efforts among students, faculty and administrators." The paper focuses on the following characteristics: (1) collaboration means that both teachers and learners are active participants in the…

This report (a product of the Teacher Beliefs Study) examines several different frameworks for conceptualizing and studying teachers' goals and their relationship to classroom practices. The report begins with an examination of the manner in which goals have been conceptualized by different research programs in the field of teacher thinking…

The effect of clarity of explanation on student learning and perception of teacher and course effectiveness is examined. Two levels of clarity were utilized, as determined by appropriate use of examples and sequencing of instruction. Three instruments were used to measure the dependent variables: university student rating form; affective…

This study compared a Piagetian and an Ausubelian preschool program on: (1) the types and frequencies of teacher-child verbalizations and (2) the degree to which these patterns of verbalizations supported teacher stated theoretical and pedagogical principles. Thirty-two 10-minute videotapes of 16 preschool children (8 within each program) recorded…

The purpose of this study was to observe and describe the teaching behavior and interaction patterns of four elementary school physical education teachers longitudinally. Each teacher was observed twice a day (AM and PM) for a period of 20 consecutive days, resulting in 40 observations per subject. The following conclusions were reached: (1)…

This book is written to give a better understanding of the principles of modern soccer to coaches and players. In nine chapters the following elements of the game are covered: (1) the development of systems; (2) the principles of attack; (3) the principles of defense; (4) training games; (5) strategies employed in restarts; (6) physical fitness…

This research report is based on a study designed to explicitly test Sigel's "Distancing Hypothesis" by examining the relationship between a cluster of seven maternal behaviors related to "distancing" and representation in a total of 60, 3- and 4-year-old boys. The boys were administered three tasks (in their nursery school) which measured…

The School Environment Inventory (SEI), an instrument for characterizing classroom environments, consists of 23 scales subsumed under five major headings: (a) curriculum, (b) predominant mode of teaching, (c) degree and mode of organization of teaching, (d) quality of teacher's relationship with children, and (e) characteristics of the physical…

This study investigated the influence of the feedback a teacher expects to receive after teaching on his preference for expository or discovery teaching styles. The subjects were 88 undergraduate educational psychology students at the University of Texas at Austin. Each completed a three-part questionnaire, the Teaching Style Inventory (TSI),…

Video tapes of similar lessons taught to small groups of students before and after science teachers attended a two-week curriculum workshop were studied to determine whether teaching style changed as a result of a workshop experience. The workshop had little influence on teacher's techniques. To develop a measure of the effectiveness of different…

The Science Curriculum Improvement Study has identified two main types of lessons: invention lessons, where the teachers introduce concepts, and discovery lessons in which children apply the concepts to new situations. The transcripts of tape recordings of the same sequence of four lessons, two invention and two discovery, of four teachers in the…

In an attempt to determine whether knowledge of teachers' conceptual systems can be used to predict teaching styles in handling information and applying sanctions, the teaching styles of 136 home economics student teachers from three midwestern universities were measured by coding tape-recorded lessons according to Joyce's system, and two…