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

Is this an audio-visual article? The purpose of this orticle, write the authors, is "to show how instructional moteriols moy be used with future teachers to help them realize the why and how of teaching the Social Studies." But is it an audio-visual article? We think it is on audio-visual article in the best and most comprehensive meaning of the word "audio-visual." The authors report a large number of audio-visual experiences: exhibits, motion picture, demonstrations, tape recording, field trips, transcriptions, modelmaking, bulletin boards, picture-taking, making of a slide sequence. All these are integral parts of the teaching-learning situation — but the emphasis in the article, OS in the teaching, is not on the means but properly on the end. We think this is teaching at its best. This is audio-visual teaching at its best. — THE EDITORS A wide variety of instructional materials gives social studies teachers IT is within the realm of possibility that a college student today, preparing to teach in the elementary schools, could take a course in social studies methods— learn a few isolated facts about the Hopis and the milkman—and never really understand what social studies are, or what it is in our society that makes the teaching of such units desirable and essential in our schools. It is also possible that this same student could pursue his blithesome way through school arts, crafts, and industrial arts courses with no more profound idea than that this was a harmless, sometimes even enjoyable, way to pass the time between more "solid" subjects. If this was his attitude during the course experienced, it might be his attitude when he began to teach. It was a mutual concern for this depth of understanding on the part of teacher trainees which caused two instructors, one in Education and one in Industrial Arts, to organize and offer a course aimed directly at making the objectives of the work come alive. The concern was to convince the students of a basic idea by having them discover it. This particular article is concerned with the use of instructional materials of many kinds in developing such an approach. In order to put this plan into effect the two instructors were given the joint responsibility of teaching a course in primary grade social studies. A group of 25 seniors were enrolled for the course during the period described in this article. The plan involved four phases: (1) to investigate man's abilities and limitations in producing useful articles from raw materials with simple tools; (2) to bring out the changes which have occurred in technology and their effect on society as man has developed from a manual level of culture to the present, highly technical machine level; (3) to consider the role of the school in preparing the child to live in an environment where such changes are taking jilace; and (4) to develop experiences for use with children in the classroom. ' We investigate man's ability to use his environment to satisfy his needs Of the first meeting of the class in the Industrial Arts workroom a student wrote: "The first thing which our class saw as we met was an assortment of various objects displayed on the table around which we assembled. At first there seemed to be no rhyine or reason for their being there. As we looked at the oljjects, however, it became evident that there was a definite comparison between objects from a primitive society and those of oin' modern one." This as.sortment of articles without apparent "rhyme or reason" was made up of carefully selected examples of r«»v in a tile factory man's ever changing attempts to satisfy basic needs in an adequate manner: strange looking implements, a modern hand drill, a hand-woven basket, a pair of plastic shoes, some ancient pottery, and a modern paper cup. Beside the table stood an electric drill press. Here were articles of natural materials made by a single individual with great manual skill, as well as articles whose fabrication was possible only in the complex interrelatedness of our modern technological society. In the discussion the students soon formulated the idea that modern man has lost much of his manual skill and has to rely more and more on social skills, upon which rest his abilities to provide himself with the necessities of life. The next time the class met they were again confronted with an assortment of objects. This time there were assembled on the table natural materials brought in from the surrounding environment: a limb from a palm tree, bamboo, rocks, clay, vines, branches with thorns, and various plants. Again a student conmiented: "If modern man were suddenly to find himself living in a prehistoric age, equipped only with the rudest of materials and lacking all the conveniences of civilized living, how would he survive? With this thought in mind our instructor in Industrial .Arts presented the class with a most iniiqiie challenge: to produce useful articles from raw materials without the aid of tools, at 318 Educational Screen