Some Materials Centers in the Midwest

Abstract

570influencing the students' choices; and (2) nearly 25 per cent of the students had no &dquo;good&dquo; reason for their choices of minor teaching fields. The college advisor should hold a key role in counseling prospective secondary-school teachers when they are deciding upon their minor teaching fields. In our society today we need to utilize both the interests and the abilities of our teachers so that they may be better prepared for their jobs. Helping future teachers in a careful and thoughtful selection of teaching minors appears to be more prudent than leaving this important decision to chance.1 OR the last ten years librarians, teachers, and professors in colleges of education have been talking about materials centers. When the term is used by the educational avant garde it is taken to mean a comprehensive collection of all media of communication which might be useful for instructional purposes. The term used to describe such centers is not always the same, however.Nor can one assume that an institution describing its own &dquo;materials center&dquo; implies much more than a couple of hundred textbooks in a back room. Just what is a materials center? What can one obtain from such a center as it actually exists?In 1957, in an attempt to answer these questions, such centers in 14 teacher education institutions of the Midwest were surveyed. Among the schools were seven state teachers colleges, three private colleges, two private universities, and three state universities. Nine replies came from Illinois, four from Indiana, and only two from Iowa.Results derived from questionnaires sent to these institutions may be helpful in assessing the current status of the materials-center concept in the Midwest and in determining how far theory has been put into practice.

From Pedagogical Museum to Instructional Material Center: Education Libraries at Teacher Training Institutions, 1890s to 1970s

“…A National Education Association (1957) survey indicated that by 1957 nearly half of the nation's teachers still did not feel comfortable with AV materials. In addition, a survey done in 1960 led Stull and Holley (1960) to conclude that education libraries did little other than provide access to print curricular materials. They wrote, "From this survey it is apparent that not only can prospective teachers leave their colleges without coming into contact with all media of communication, but frequently they do" (p. 572).…”