How to Teach

The authors apply psychological principles to classroom practice, beginning with the teacher's social aims and the child's original nature. They examine attention, interest, habit formation, memorization, imagination, and methods to stimulate thinking and appreciation, and consider the educational role of play and individual differences. Practical chapters discuss transfer of training, types of classroom exercises, study techniques, and procedures for measuring pupil achievement. Throughout the text pedagogical recommendations are tied to experimental research and assessment, emphasizing social efficiency as the guiding aim and the teacher's responsibility to cultivate desirable tendencies while inhibiting socially harmful ones.