| Abstract: | "To improve our teaching requires an occasional review of what we have been teaching-an audit to determine the objectives, examine the content, and appraise the results of the instruction we have been giving. Against the background of such an audit, we can then attempt to build a better curriculum. That was our objective. We spent the summer of 1951 working together because we believed that we could develop a better undergraduate curriculum in psychology than is now being taught. The Grant Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York were interested in supporting such a venture; we very much appreciate their generosity in making it possible for us to work together. As is always the case when foundations give grants, the foundations are not responsible for any of the statements or recommendations we have made. We came together because we shared a belief that we could prepare a set of recommendations concerning undergraduate instruction in psychology which our colleagues would find useful. What we have attempted to do is indicated by the chapter titles. Chapter 1 presents our ideas of the proper objectives for undergraduate instruction in psychology. Chapter 2 describes an undergraduate curriculum which we think will help students to achieve those objectives; the major courses in the curriculum are briefly outlined; others, in which we expect greater variety from one school to another, are described in more general terms. Chapter 3 discusses courses which emphasize personal adjustment and explains why we thought such a program less satisfactory than the one recommended in Chapter 2. In Chapter 4 we give attention to those students who want to do psychological work but who do not want to spend time in extensive graduate preparation. Chapter 5 takes up some of the problems which any departmental faculty will encounter in trying to put our curriculum into effect and suggests ways in which it can be adapted to different kinds of colleges. Throughout our discussions we were constantly aware of the fact that we were making pronouncements on issues which ought to be settled by experimental studies rather than by simply pooling our experience and judgment. Consequently, in Chapter 6 we have discussed some of the questions which could, we think, be resolved by experimental studies of the teaching process and of the outcomes of different kinds of classes and pedagogical methods"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). |
|---|