t the
students with the general aim of the entire course as well as with the
specific aim of each laboratory exercise. The students must be made to
realize that they are not discovering new principles but that by
rediscovering old knowledge or testing the validity of well-established
truths they are developing not only the technique of investigational
work, but also a set of useful mental habits. Much in laboratory work
seems needless to the student who does not perceive the goal which
every task strives to attain.

A third requisite for successful laboratory work requires so careful a
gradation that every type of problem peculiar to a subject is made to
arise in the succession of exercises. It is wise at times to set a
trap for students so that they may learn through the consequences of
error. For this reason students may be permitted to leap to a
conclusion, to generalize from insufficient data, to neglect controls,
to overlook disturbing factors, etc. An improperly planned and poorly
graded laboratory course repeats exercises that involve the same
problems and omits situations that give training in attacking and
solving new problems.

Effective laboratory courses afford opportunity to students to repeat
those exercises in which they failed badly. If each exercise in the
course is designed to make a specific contribution to the development
of the student, it is obvious that merely marking the student zero for
a badly executed experiment is not meeting the situation. He must in
addition be given the opportunity to repeat the experiment in order
to derive the necessary variety of experiences from his laboratory
training. And, finally, the character of the test that concludes a
laboratory course must be considered. The test must be governed by the
same underlying aims that determine the entire course. It must seek to
reveal, not the mastery of facts, but growth in power. It must measure
what the student can do rather than what he knows. A properly
organized test serves to reinforce in the minds of students the aims
of the entire course.

=The college teacher not the university professor=

An analysis of effective teaching is necessarily incomplete that does
not give due consideration to the only human factor in the teaching
process--the teacher. We have too long repeated the old adages: "he
who knows can teach"; "a teacher is born, not made"; "experience is
the teacher of teachers." These dicta are all tried and tru