two
new
ways
Two professors. Bill Sheppard in psy
chology and John Wish in marketing, in
surance and transportation, are doing some
creative things in teaching within the pre
sent educational structure.
They are not, by any means, the only
faculty members who are using relatively
unorthodox methods. But they are signifi
cant in the contrast that can be drawn
between their respective approaches.
Sheppard’s course in introductory psy
chology is highly structured although it
does permit the student to set his own rate
of progress. His is a regular course in learn
ing and thinking, PSY 211. taught with ir
regular methods.
It has 200 students in a lecture hall. It's
primary objective is the acquisition by stu
dents of a specifically defined body of know
ledge.
Wish's course, on the contrary, was an
almost totally unstructured SEARCH 407
seminar held last Winter and Spring terms.
It was composed of about 30 students.
Learning to apply knowledge to a specific
problem was the primary objective of the
course.
During Spring term, low-income areas of
Portland served as the “classroom.”
staff: wandalvn rice
photos: cindy bovdstun. bud lawrence, lew
melson, mike northup, dean tonn
Sheppard
This first innovative approach takes the
large lecture class and, without changing
its size or its location or increasing the
amount of student or instructor hours re
quired, transforms it into an interactive
situation. In the course of a term each
student spends a total of six hours speak
ing about the subject material to a class
mate and six hours listening to another
individual.
The program focuses on a text developed
by C.B. Ferster of Georgetown University.
The specifically defined objective of the
course is complete fluency in the principles
of operant behavior presented in the text.
The student is evaluated on total mastery
of defined blocks of material rather than
on conventional partial mastery of the
course content.
The text is laid out in small units of ma
terial. The student first studies a single unit
and is then interviewed by a TA or another
student who has completed the same parti
cular unit. The interview lasts about ten
minutes. In this time the student, with the
text before him as a guide, challenges or
simply explains the material covered in the
unit. If his presentation satisfies the inter
viewer, he is checked off and proceeds to
the next unit. If not, he restudies the unit
and is interviewed again with no penalty.
In this manner the student sets his own
pace. He is required only to be interviewed
and give interviews. An objective final will
be given only for experimental comparison
with a separate control group.
The process of studying and interview
Wish
Wish’s course last year, like Sheppard’s,
was an experiment in innovative education,
but there the similarity ends. The objec
tives here were 1) to sensitize White, mid
dle-class, suburban students to the prob
lems of the inner city, 2) to experiment
with field work as a teaching technique and
3) to try to do “something” positive in the
inner city.
The theme of this unstructured approach
is “learning by doing and by exposure.”
During Winter term the class began its
preparation for field work since the stu
dents had no previous experience in survey
research. At this time contact was made
with the Model Cities program and other
community action agencies in Portland to
ascertain what they wanted done.
The original goal for the course was the
production of a survey research report on
consumer goods prices in low-income areas
of Portland. The final project outcome was
quite different.
The students worked for various agencies
collecting census and demographic data and
surveying opinions of residents regarding
their community.
The actual field work occurred during
Spring term. A few members of the class
received 15 units of credit for working full
ing takes place in the normal three, one
hour classes per week. At the end of the
term the student is graded on the amount
of material covered.
The principle is that the student will
achieve and maintain a high competence
in the material he covers and is, as a result,
evaluated on the amount of material mas
tered rather than for the level of mastery
of a given amount of material. The student
is immediately reinforced by his interview
er's approval if he is correct or immediate
ly corrected without penalty if he is wrong.
This is the value of the interactive method.
According to Sheppard, much research
in methods of instruction has limited value
because “it has been dealing primarily with
methods we already use. It compares, for
example, a lecture writh a discussion . . .
“We're not using much imagination in
coming up with new ideas.”
He feels that, in order to evaluate the
effectiveness of any method of teaching, it
must be asked: “Has the course changed
the student’s behavior in any measurable
way? In the last analysis it’s only those
changes in behavior that are relevant.”
This course is one of the first of its kind
and it is experimental. It is one concrete
effort to make the large class which “we
seem to be stuck with” more amenable
to the process of learning.
time in Portland. Others taking three to five
units spent shorter periods of time in Port
land. Now one girl is working for East-CAP
Housing Corporation after graduating at
the end of Spring term.
Residents of the area worked with the
students to do the actual field work and
the students acted as technial advisors in
training residents and supervising and di
recting the survery. All of the funds for
the project came from the involved agen
cies to pay resident workers and purchase
supplies and computer time.
Starting from scratch and thrown almost
directly into field work, class members were
sensitized to inner city problems and did
accomplish something positive. The survey
was completed, several residents who were
unemployed are now employed and stu
dents learned survey research by conduct
ing it. Wish is planning a similar course
for this year.