Word: approach
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...safety commission from New York State showed off a design for a four-passenger Safety Sedan, developed under a $385,000 contract by Fairchild Killer Corp.'s Republic Aviation Division. Billed as a car to be developed with "an aeronautical approach," the sedan could, according to the safety commission, be mass-produced as cheaply as Detroit's lower-priced models, be far ahead in safety. Though New York State has no plans to build it, the design has such features as four-wheel drive for maximum traction and resistance to skidding, an all-window defrosting system, four roll...
Cieslik's mode of questioning is the essence of the discovery approach to science (TIME, Dec. 16, 1966), in which Socratic discussion led by a teacher forces students to hit upon conclusions of their own. Although now widely used in U.S. high school physics, biology and earth-science courses, and heartily endorsed by university-based educational theorists, the method has-perhaps inevitably-come up against the same kind of hostility that faces many another academic reform. In varying degrees, the discovery approach has become a problem for teachers, parents and students alike...
Teachers who have adjusted to the new courses frequently run up against parental misunderstandings. Since the discovery approach accents the learning of basic principles rather than concrete facts-such as learning the parts of an internal-combustion engine or memorizing the table of elements-parents complain that their children "aren't learning anything." A more serious problem is evaluating a child's performance in discovery classes. One study showed that many students who made A's and B's in traditional physics courses slipped to C's and D's in the new courses...
Show Me & Prove It. Considering the research consciousness of education experts, it is quite surprising that there are no major studies showing just how effective discovery courses have been. Spot checks, however, indicate that students who have mastered the new approach do well on college entrance exams and have little difficulty in their college science courses-even though these rarely employ the discovery method. Such students, contends Dr. Keith Kelson, deputy associate director of the National Science Foundation, "no longer accept flat statements from professors-they have a distinct show-me-and-prove-it attitude...
...value of the new courses is reflected in the contagious reaction of the teachers and students who find that the discovery approach suddenly makes science fun. "You can see a change in attitude among students," says Dale Hesser, a Mattydale, N.Y., earth-science teacher. "A light comes into their eyes, and it's much easier to motivate them. If I couldn't teach this way, I would get out of teaching." At Los Angeles' Fremont High School, Sophomore Billy Tucker, who has trouble with arithmetic and reading, figures he will be fortunate to pass his discovery-based...