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Reports & Snapshots

SNAPSHOT #1

 What pedagogical philosophy guides most American teachers? Do they believe in the traditional instructional model of whole class structured explanation, guided practice, and a common curriculum contained in textbooks? Or do they believe that a learning process which stresses student interest, initiative, and "sense-making" is more important than a particular curriculum and see themselves more as a facilitator and resource provider than a source of content knowledge for students?

We found that fewer teachers professed to believe in the traditional, fixed-curriculum, fact and skill-oriented model of teaching as supported a more "constructivist" teaching philosophy. This is true among high school teachers as well as elementary and middle-level teachers. However, there is not a professional consensus on this issue; a great many teachers at all levels still support the traditional model. Here are our results for one set of survey questions that presented pairs of contrasting quotations from teachers about their teaching philosophy.

The first bar shows that about 4 teachers in 10 saw themselves primarily as a facilitator of student initiative, while 3 in 10 saw themselves as someone who structured knowledge for students and directed their practice of subject material.

The others placed themselves in the middle between these alternatives.

The second bar is somewhat more one-sided. About one-half of all teachers said it was more important to encourage "sense-making" or thinking among students; while only about 20% believed that the content of the curriculum was more important. The third bar shows a similar balance between developing student interest in academic work (more than 50%) versus their attaining the knowledge in their textbooks (under 20%).

The fourth bar shows that a plurality of teachers value having a diverse set of complex activities going on in their classroom rather than having the whole class doing the same activity, a set of brief activities with clear directions.

What do these same teachers report doing in their classrooms? Are they following in practice what they say they most strongly believe in? Under what conditions are they able to implement their teaching philosophies? In particular, do computer resources make it more likely that teachers professing constructivist philosophies put those beliefs into practice? These questions, as well as more detailed inquiry concerning teachers' philosophies themselves, will be among the many issues addressed in future reports with the TLC–1998 survey data set.