Page 6 Teacher Education Stresses Application In the operations. center, Fj : ee ~~ ge le students check out WILKITS, sign up for seminars, make appointments to see faculty members, arrange for peer teaching, take tests or meet informally with other students. All such activities are rotated regularly so that a student will not have to wait long. An example of a group activity in the Interaction Laboratory is the showing of a film where a third grade girl is interviewed. , avs ~ ey = Rat aG enn is dividualized Learning Kits) have behavorial objectives stating precisely what the student should be able to do when he has completed the WILKIT. There are 25 WILKITS in Secondary Education and 50 WILKITS in Elementary Education. WILKITS may require 5 to 30 hours to complete and carry ¥% to one hour credit. Learning experiences help a student achieve the behavorial objectives and can range from readings, seminars, public school experiences, films, tapes, peer teaching, micro-teaching etc. Self-tests allow a student to monitor his own progress. The program shifts the responsibility to the student for his own progress and lets him assess his readiness for final tests that are designed to measure the students knowledge and ability to perform the behavorial objectives in the WILKIT. The student has clearly specified goals. If he meets the goal, he passes. If he doesn’t meet the goal he recycles and tries again. Grades are done away with. ee Te EEA a ess ae Competency-based _ teacher education, pioneered at Weber State College, is having some surprising and interesting results. The program was designed to stress not only learning the “‘theory”’ of teaching but the “‘application” of teaching skills as well. Students are to become competent in those actual teaching practices necessary for the classroom. “In the traditional system of teacher education certain things are held constant such as instruction, assignments and time but achievement is varied,’ said Dr. Blaine Parkinson, Dean of the School of Education. ‘In competency-based teacher education instruction, assignments and time are varied but achievement is held constant. How else can there be significant quality control?” Instead of students sitting in the traditional classroom trying to ‘outguess’ the teacher and decide if he is going to test on the textbook or his lectures (and how many haven’t gone through that) students know from the outset exactly what they will need to achieve. WILKITS (Weber In- TEACHER EDUCATION Curriculum librarian Evan Christensen checks in books from Liz Sliger, elementary education major. Students become responsible for their own education and reading is outline in WILKITS. Photos by John Shupe Half the group is told that the girl is the daughter of a cocktail waitress who has moved several times and is a rather poor student. The other half of the group is told that the girl is the daughter of a doctor, they are fine people and the girl is a good student. The group unites to see the film and write individual observations of the child. They discover that their observations of the film are influenced by their bias and then explore what this means for them as teachers and for children who will be their students. “There Have been some interesting ‘by-products’ of the program. Students are learning things we hadn’t expected them to. They learn skills in the program process,”’ said Dr. Parkinson. “‘Where students had ‘skimmed’ to get by they now have to really learn to read. They learn the relationship of theory and practice.”’ “Having to plan their own schedules has taught them to organize and accept respon(Continued on page 7) VIEWING HIMSELF teaching on TV is helpful to John Barker, elementary education student. Susan Rife, director of micro-teaching, helps him — critique his performance. $