Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1944 [PAGE 1068]

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U N I V E R S I T Y OF I L L I N O I S

IO65

the administrative staff indicated an awareness of this problem and the desirability of doing something about it. It should be stated furthermore that the staff in the office of the Provost has in recent years made an approach to this problem by helping individual instructors when requested in the construction of examinations. But only a little of this work has been done thus far. Nothing precise or comprehensive has been achieved in evaluating instruction by the faculty as a whole, or in checking the results of instruction through student achievement tests which might be used as a basis of comparison with similar reports from other institutions of higher education. This last fact is of peculiar significance since tests of student achievement with nationally established norms have been available and widely used among leading institutions of higher education since about 1925. It is true that in 1939 the Senate Committee on Educational Policy completed a survey of all courses and curricula given at Urbana for the professed purpose of improving teaching effectiveness. This report resulted in a reduction of the number of courses offered and in the number of overlapping courses, but it did not result to any considerable extent in changing the content of the remaining courses. It is misleading, however, to consider this study and report as contributing directly to problems of teaching effectiveness. Of course, it is true that proper teaching depends upon a selection of proper materials to be taught, but it is a non sequitur to conclude that once the proper materials have been chosen, good teaching is thereby insured. Finally, some credit must be given to the following activities of limited scope which have been carried on: 1. In the fall of 1938, the Provost's office of the University of Illinois was expanded to provide for consultation and assistance to faculty members in studying educational problems. The added staff included a consultant in higher education and several research assistants. Bibliographical materials as well as lists of syllabi were assembled, printed in mimeographed form, and made available to the staff members charged with developing the new courses in the General Division. They covered the general areas of the biological sciences, the physical sci-

[A.C.E. Report—47]