College Teaching Part 9

(_a_) An increased recognition of the subject matter in organizing the course. In the early courses the subject ought to be subordinated to the personal elements. If one is to relate himself to the science in a professional way, the logic of the science comes to be the dominant objective.

(_b_) Growing out of the above there comes to be a change of emphasis on the scientific method. The method itself is identical, but the att.i.tude toward it is different. In the early courses it was guided by the _teaching_ purpose. We insist upon the method in order that the student may appreciate how the subject has grown, may realize how all truth must be reached, and may come habitually to apply the method to his life problems. In the later courses it becomes the method of research into the unknown. The student comes more and more to use it as a tool, in whose use he himself is subordinated to his devotion to a field of investigation.

(_c_) A greater emphasis upon such special forms of biological knowledge as will be necessary as tools in the succeeding steps, and the selection of subject matter with this specifically in view. This is chiefly a matter of information, making the next steps intellectually possible.

(_d_) More specific forms of skill, adapted to the work contemplated.

Technic becomes an object in such courses. Morphology, histology, technic, exact experimentation, repet.i.tion, drill, extended comparative studies, cla.s.sifition, and the like become more essential than in the elementary courses. Thoroughness and mastery are desiderata for the sake both of subject matter and character; and in very much greater degree than in the general course.

ORGANIZATION OF THE COURSE IN BIOLOGY

=Biology courses not to be standardized rigidly=

The writer does not feel that standardized programs in biology in colleges are either possible or desirable. What is set down here under this heading is merely intended as carrying out the principles outlined above, and not as the only way to provide a suitable program.

The writer a.s.sumes that the undergraduates are handled by men of catholic interests; and that the undergraduate courses are not distributed and manipulated primarily as feeders for specialized departments of research in a graduate school. This latter att.i.tude is, in my opinion, fatal to creditable undergraduate instruction for the general student or for the future high school teachers of the subject.

=But they should follow a general principle:=

There are three groups or cycles of courses which may properly be developed by the college or by the undergraduate department of the university.

_First Group_

=(1) The _first_ group of courses should introduce to life rather than to later biological courses=

This group contains introductory courses for all students, but organized particularly with the idea of bringing the rich material of biology to the service of young people with the aim of making them effective in life, and not as a first course for making them botanists or zoologists.

Course--_Biology 1._ General Biology

This course should introduce the student to the college method of work in the life sciences; should give him the general knowledge and points of view outlined above as the chief aims of Biology; should synthesize what the student already knows about plants and animals under the general conception of life. Ideally the botanical and zoological portions should be fused and be given by one teacher, rather than presented as one semester of botany and one of zoology. This, however, is frequently impracticable. In any event the total result should really be biology, and not a patchwork of botany and zoology. Hence there should be a free crossing of the barriers in use of materials at all times.

A year of biology is recommended because each pupil ought to have some work in both fields, and we cannot expect him to take a year in each.

Course--_Biology 2._ History of Biology

This course, dealing with the relation of the development of biology to human interests and problems, may be given separately, or as a part of Course 1,--which should otherwise be prerequisite to it. This may be one of the most humanizing of all the possible courses in biology.

_Second Group_

=(2) A _second_ group should be technical and introductory to professional uses=

This group furnishes a series of courses providing a thorough introduction to the principles and methods of botany and zoology. They provide discipline, drill, comparison, mastery of technic as well as increased appreciation of biology and of the scientific method. They should prepare for advanced work in biology, and for technical applications of it to medicine, agriculture, stock breeding, forestry, etc.

Course--Botany 1: General and Comparative Botany, and the Evolution of Plants.

Course--Botany 2: Physiology and Ecology of Plants.

Course--Botany 3: Plant Cytology, Histology, and Embryology.

Course--Zoology 1: General and Comparative Zoology.

Course--Zoology 2: Animal, including Human, Physiology.

Course--Zoology 3: Microtechnic, Histology, Histogenesis, Embryogeny.

Course--Zoology 4: Animal Ecology.

This outline for botany and zoology follows in the main the most common arrangement found in the schools of the country. In the personal judgment of the writer all undergraduate courses should combine aspects of morphology, physiology, ecology, etc., rather than be confined strictly to one particular phase; even histology and embryology can be better taught when their physiological aspects are emphasized. There is no fundamental reason, however, why there may not be great lat.i.tude of treatment in this group. An alluring feature of biological teaching is that a teacher who has a vital objective can begin anywhere in our wonderful subject and get logically to any point he wishes. These courses may be further subdivided, where facilities allow.

_Third Group_

=(3) A _third_ group of special, but cultural, courses=

This group contains certain of the more elementary applications of biology to human welfare. While having practical value in somewhat specialized vocations, the courses in this group are not proposed as professional or technical. They are definitely cultural. Every college might well give one or more of them, in accordance with local conditions. They ought to be eligible without the courses of the second group. The order is not significant.

Biology 3: Economic Entomology; Biology 4: Bird Course; Biology 5: Tree Course; Biology 6: Bacteriology and Fermentation; Biology 7: Biology of s.e.x; Heredity and Eugenics; Biology 8: Biology and Education; Biology 9: Evolution and Theoretical Problems.

PLACE OF BIOLOGY IN THE COLLEGE CURRICULUM

=The first course ought to be given in such a way that it might fittingly be required of all freshmen=

The introductory course (Biology 1) can be given in such a way that it ought to be required of all students during the freshman or soph.o.m.ore year, preferably the freshman. In addition to the life value suggested above, and its introductory value in later biology courses, such a course would aid the student in psychology, sociology, geology, ethics, philosophy, education, domestic economy, and physical culture.

Effort should be made to correlate the biological work with these departments of instruction. The course as now given in most of our colleges and universities does not possess enough merit to become a required study. Perhaps all we have a right at present to ask is that biology shall be one of a group of sciences from which all students must elect at least one. It is preposterous, in an age of science, that any college should not require at least a year of science.

Biology 1 should be prerequisite for botany 1 and zoology 1, and for the special biology courses in group three.

Botany 1 and zoology 1 should be made prerequisite for the higher courses in their respective fields; but aside from this almost any sequence would be allowable.

A major in biology should provide at least for biology 1 and 2, botany 1, zoology 1, botany 2 and 3, or zoology, 2 and 3. Chemistry is desirable as a preparation for the second group of courses.

METHODS OF TEACHING AS CONDITIONED BY THE AIMS OUTLINED ABOVE

=Acceptance of biology r.e.t.a.r.ded by poor pedagogy=

Since the laboratory method came into use among biologists, there has been a disposition, growing out of its very excellences, to make a fetich of it, to refuse to recognize the necessity of other methods, to be intolerant of any science courses not employing the laboratory, and to affect a lofty disdain of any pedagogical discussion of the question whatsoever. The tone in which all this is done suggests a boast; but to the discriminating it amounts to a confession! The result of it has been to r.e.t.a.r.d the development of biology to its rightful place as one of the most foundational and catholic of all educational fields. The great variety of aim and of matter not merely allow, but make imperative, the use of all possible methods; and there is no method found fruitful in education which does not lend itself to use in biology. The lecture method, the textbook, the recitation, the quiz and the inverted quiz, the method of a.s.signed readings and reports, the method of conference and seminar, the laboratory method, and the field method are all applicable and needed in every course, even the most elementary.

=Prost.i.tution of the laboratory=

Our method has thus crystallized about the laboratory as the one essential thing; but worse, we have used the very shortcomings of the laboratory as an excuse for extending its sway. The laboratory method is the method of research in biology. It is our only way to discover unknown facts. Is it, therefore, the best way to rediscover facts?

This does not necessarily follow, though we have a.s.sumed it.

Self-discovered facts are no better nor more true than communicated facts, and it takes more time to get them. The laboratory is the slowest possible way of getting facts. We have tried to correct this quant.i.tative difficulty by extending the laboratory time, by speeding up, by confining ourselves to static types of facts like those of structure, and by using detailed laboratory guides for matter and method, all of which tends to make the laboratory exercise one of routine and the mere observation and recording of facts or a verification of the statements in manuals. The correction of these well-known limitations of the laboratory must come, in my opinion, by a frank recognition of, and breaking away from, certain of our misapprehensions about the function of the laboratory. Some of these are:

=Real purpose and possibility of laboratory work=

1. That the chief facts of a science should be rediscovered by the student in the laboratory. This is not true. Life is too short. The great ma.s.s of the student's facts must come from the instructor and from books. The laboratory has as its function in respect to facts, some very vital things: as, making clear certain cla.s.ses of facts which the student cannot visualize without concrete demonstration; giving vividness to facts in general; gaining of enough facts at first hand to enable him to hold in solution the great ma.s.s of facts which he must take second hand; to give him skill and accuracy in observation and in recording discoveries; to give appreciation of the way in which all the second-hand facts have been reached; to give taste and enthusiasm for asking questions and confidence and persistence in finding answers for them. Anything more than this is waste of time. These results are not gained by mere quant.i.ty of work, but only through constant and intelligent guidance of the student's att.i.tude in the process of dealing with facts.

2. A feeling that the laboratory or scientific method consists primarily of observation of facts and their record. In reality these are three great steps instead of one in this method, which the student of biology should master: (1) the getting of facts, one device for doing which is observation; (2) the appraisal and discrimination of these facts to find which are important; and (3) the drawing of the conclusions which these facts seem to warrant. There are two practical corollaries of this truth. One is that the laboratory should be so administered that the pupil shall appreciate the full scope of the scientific method, its tremendous historic value to the race, and the necessity of using _all_ the steps of it faithfully in all future progress as well as in the sound solution of our individual problems and the guidance of conduct. The second is that we may make errors in our scientific conclusions and in life conclusions, through failure to discriminate among our facts, quite as fatally as through lack of facts. Indeed, my personal conviction is that more failures are due to lack of discrimination than to lack of observation. The power to weigh evidence is at least as important as the power to collect it.