SPEAKING OF EDUCATION

Education reform and teachers

By Paul D. Nelson, PhD
Acting APA Executive Director for Education

Whether stimulated by the likes of Ernest Boyer's "scholarship reconsidered" theme in higher education or the "Goals 2000" mandate for our nation's public schools, the demands of scholars, politicians and ordinary citizens for "education reform" at all levels have been a hallmark of the 1990s.

Much if not most of the public's attention to education-reform issues has been focused on the qualities and activities of teachers, the substance of what is taught or to be learned and standards related thereto, or on the more readily measured outcomes of schooling and education, such as school completion rates and standardized test scores. While these can be important indicators of education quality, they do not inform us well about the teaching and learning processes, the motivation and cognitive development that serve as linkages between inputs and outcomes in education. These are processes about which psychology has something to say, and has since its earliest days as a scientific discipline.

Initiated nearly 10 years ago by an APA presidential task force under the leadership of Charles Spielberger, the applications of psychology's body of knowledge to the issues of teaching and learning resulted in what has been one of the more frequently requested documents of the APA Education Directorate's Center for Psychology in Schools and Education (CPSE), namely the Learner-Centered Psychological Principles. The document is available through the CPSE (http://www.apa.org/ed/) and contains a brief history of its development. Although it has been widely disseminated nationally among teachers and education organizations, the CPSE advisory committee recently recommended that high priority be given to further collaboration with other national organizations and teachers colleges in the utilization and evaluation of these principles in practice.

Developments worth noting

In addition to applying our discipline to issues of teaching and learning in general, the Education Directorate is also committed to advancing the quality of teaching and learning within the discipline of psychology. For this goal, teaching at the high school and undergraduate levels is critical, since it is at those levels that psychology is generally first taught as a discipline to the largest number of students. In this context, two recent developments in the teaching of psychology are worth noting.

* For the first time there are now national standards for the teaching of psychology in high schools, thus augmenting the achievement of a decade ago when psychology as a discipline was recognized by The College Board for Advanced Placement examination. Developed over several years by the Teachers of Psychology in Secondary Schools (TOPSS), an affiliate organization of APA, reviewed and critiqued by APA boards and committees, the high school standards for psychology were finally approved in August this year by the Council of Representatives. The leaders of TOPSS are commended for this significant achievement that now places psychology among the other science disciplines for which secondary school standards for learning are in effect.

* In June, the Education Directorate and Board of Educational Affairs co-sponsored with James Madison University a national forum to explore models of ways in which partnerships in teaching and learning psychology might be developed between different levels of education across different types of institutions and settings. Representatives were present from high schools, community colleges, four-year liberal arts colleges and universities. What a productive event that was and continues to be! Indeed, since the forum was held, but on the basis of its goals and with thanks to our former Executive Director Jill Reich for her initiative, we have received modest grant support from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to develop further models that were forthcoming.

Becoming a major player

Plans are under way for these outcomes to be shared in the future, too, through workshops for teachers of psychology at high school and undergraduate levels, sponsored in collaboration with regional psychological associations through partnerships of the Education Directorate with TOPSS, members of Div. 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology), the Council of Undergraduate Psychology Programs and the Council of Teachers of Undergraduate Psychology.

As these few examples illustrate, psychology is fast becoming a major player among the learned, scientific disciplines in what might be referred to as a national agenda for "teaching and learning partnerships for a new era." Psychology as a discipline must be active in this agenda for it has much to contribute. It also has much to learn.



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