Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

of Taipei and there are always more volunteering schools than can be used. Major responsibility for the detailed planning of each workshop falls on the normal school resiwnsible for the service area involved. The members of the nonnal school Extension Committee meet with the sponsoring elementary school. On each such Extension Committee are one or two members who have received training in Japan or the Philippines under the American aid program. Later in the planning, staff members from the NEMC meet with the planning groups. The purposes of these workshops are simple. All activities and materials are aimed at stimulating interest in improved teaching methods and the production and better use of educational materials. The traveling exhibits will be displayed in the community in advance of the meetings. Usually a series of classrooms are used for these exhibits and those materials which the local school also prepares. The exhibits are well publicized in descriptive NEMC circulars and in local newspapers. A large segment of the population visits the displays, especially in smaller communities. One day of the exhibit period will be set aside for the workshop activities directed at teachers. Teachers of the grade level or subject area are invited from schools in neighboring communities. Some students may be included from the nearby normal school. Officials from the city and county education offices will be present. The central activity will be a series of teaching demonstrations. This teaching will be in an appropriate field and grade level in which the school feels that it can make a challenging contribution. The teaching demonstrations are followed by small group discussions where the demonstrated materials and methods are evaluated. In some cases a written evaluation form is filled out during the discussion period. The day's meetings are generally concluded by a group session in which an authority (usually from the Normal University) discusses teaching methods in the field involved. There have of course been many problems. Here are a few of them: 1. The exhibits themselves originalh' were not very well produced, with the panels being mostly statements about teaching. But gradually the nonnal schools have introduced graphic techniques, cartoons, pictures and three dimensional materials to the exhibits. Next year the NEMC will try to further upgrade the exhibit techniques by bringing to Taipei selected students from each normal school for a short intensive course in exhibit making and display. 2. The teaching demonstrations sometimes did not challenge. Occasionally a teacher would fail to include any new techniques or new use of materials. Supervisors have found it necessary to constantly emphasize that the purpose of all in-service activities is to promote teacher growth, to show new ideas and methods. 3. Some "small group discussions" were not discussions. The normal school people found it necessary to make advance visits to the schools involved, assist in the choice of discussion leaders, prepare materials for the training of these leaders. Now it is a generally accepted principle that discussions must be carefully planned and the leadership trained. Teachers of the demonstration classes are asked to participate in these group discussions. 4. Speeches in the general meetings were too many and too long. They still are. However progress is being made and the emphasis in workshop planning has moved to the more productive activities. What is different about this program of in-service training? Certainly exhibits are not a new device. Neither are demonstration classes or discussion. It is the deliberate and systematic combination of these techniques in a country-wide program which is deserving of attention. Literally hundreds of schools and cities and districts in the Republic of China have been stimulated to tiy similar workshops. Not all of these are good workshops. But the standards set by the NEMC program are making a noticeable difference. And a large segment of the teachers in the schools ol Free China are being challenged to upgrade their teaching methods and materials. Special frames for the pxhibils are easily assembled or taken apart. In the smaller eomnuinilies of Taiwan, nearly everybody conies to see the exhibits. 284 Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — June, 1961