Report of teaching procedure. The teaching was carried out as planned. On the first day (two double periods) the preparation and the presentation and part of the study of references was completed. Following is the farm practice survey form which was worked out with the class: The pupils got the information called for in the survey form when they went home. On the following two days the final summary and organization of the material was made as indicated by the following summaries and analysis: Table 1.-Summary of the Farm Practice Survey; page 21; Table 2.-Frequency of the Practices, page 22; Table 3.-Analysis of Operative Training Content, page 23. TABLE 3.-Analysis of operative training content for the farm job of fertilizing in the enterprise of growing corn for grain Related information (Testing) The project plans are not available for this report. See also the last paragraph under "Comments and Summary," page 25. Comments and summary. It should be noted that teaching a lesson of this type serves two purposes. The first and controlling purpose should be to enable the pupil to secure the ability to select and organize information such as would enable a person familiar with the common operations of corn growing to carry out the practices required for fertilizing corn. successfully. The second purpose is to secure the information for Such information under these conditions is therefore nothing more than a valuable by-product. It is apparent, however, that if the best results are to be obtained from work of this sort the pupils must have a desire to get this information for their own use, as well as for the sake of securing ability to secure similar information for similar jobs. Before attempting to teach a lesson of this type the teacher should assure himself that the pupil already possesses a satisfactory basis of general operative experience with reference to the farm job which is being used as a vehicle for the instruction with which the lesson deals. In other words, the pupil should be familiar with the common practices in connection with fertilizing corn, such as applying barnyard manure, turning under cover crops, and applying commercial fertilizer. In short, he should have such experience and training as will enable him to grasp the meaning of the results of work at experiment stations and to be able to compare, in a discriminating way the practices of different farmers. Also, his experience should be such that the organized assembly of the items of standard practice for the job will, without more specific training, enable him to do the job with a reasonable degree of assurance and success. Fortunately, most farm boys have a great deal of such basic experience. The facts discussed in the preparation called the attention of the pupils to the need for, and the possibility of, increasing the yield of corn in the locality. The attention was directed also to the fact that they themselves were expected to discover the fertilizing practices which could be relied upon to produce a profitable yield of corn under average local conditions. In a lesson of this type the development of the analysis in the presentation had to do with the procedure to be followed in securing, evaluating, and organizing functioning information. Before the pupils have had much practice the teacher will, of course, have to do a good deal of questioning, directing, and suggesting, but he should constantly try to bring them to the place where they can carry through this procedure with the minimum of assistance or direction on his part. |