The changing roles of teachers as required by educational innovations : research and teaching

Objective description o.f teacher behavior in the classroom remains necessary. And since we have not yet a really satisfying instrument for that description, research also remains necessary. To convey a correct picture of teachin processes, it seems that research has still to solve some problems of observational procedures and to refine the analysis techniques, but it mainly must : 1. extract the teaching variables from the various concenptual systems used and empirically described and introduce them into a theoretical framework 2. define experimentally the conditions of a valid measurement of these variables 3. test the currently hypothetized relationships between these variables and the teachers personalities and properties, methods and systems of teaching, the pupils activities and personalities and their learnings. The recent papers of Biddle1, Gage and Unruh2 seem to present a promising base to discuss these problems and to build a useful framework for rosearch. When we have an efficient, easy to handle instrument at our disposal, the shall then be ablB to investigate whether the teaching methods observed are really in the line of the objectives chosen or not. Of course, another kind of research is also needed, but though important, it is of secondary rank in our perspective. When the general method best suited for reaching the objections imposed by our modern culture have been defined, we must then also define the best way to use the different aids, techniques, processes in that context, to train teachers, etc. It is evident, for instance, that there is an optimum duration of exposure of a definite class of individuals, learning definite subjects, to TV teaching, audio-lab training.