B. Claude Mathis

Content and Boundaries of Educational Psychology

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.”

Preparing Graduate Students for College Teaching: Rationale and Methods.

Critics of higher education have increased their ef f rts towa d the improvem nt of college teaching as an area in need of reform. The literature is replete with studies, conference reports, and commentary calling for a renewed commitment to teaching. Changes in cur riculum, student evaluation of teaching, realignment of institutional reward structures, inservice programs, and preservice preparation of future college teachers have been suggested as solutions. Some commendable pro grams have emerged to meet this growing demand. Yet resistance to such innovations is well entrenched. One

The Teaching Scholar--An Old Model in a New Context.

Complex problems which have not arisen before are facing higher education institutions. For the first time, &dquo;survival&dquo; is a central need which directs much of the planning and orders many of the decisions now being made about the structure of the academic future in postsecondary study. The form of education offered to students may be profoundly affected by the new &dquo;three Rs,&dquo; reexamination, retrenchment, and retirement. The shape of this new subject matter has not become sufficiently formed to establish itself as a traditional commitment for academic resources.

What Happened to Research on College Teaching

cannot help but be impressed by the number of words written about effective college teaching. Yet, in spite of the many studies and the considerable amounts of money invested annually in efforts to improve college teaching, the nature of effectiveness proves to be as illusive as ever. Were it not for the fact that the academic professions are populated by honorable and insightful scholars, one might suspect that some subconscious resistance has prevented academicians from focusing the excellence of their scholarly and empirical interests on the one thing which keeps the enterprise of higher education alive and prospering through growth and adversity-the quality of the efforts of teacher-scholars in the classroom.

Needed: Better Information About Colleges: Experimenting with "College Suggestor"

Campus reactions are evidence that communica tion between colleges and their students fre quently is not as clear as it might be. Equally frequently, communication between colleges and prospective students is incomplete and ambiguous. Something can be done about the latter state, but it will take organization.