The Conceptualization of Prescriptions for Teaching

The body of recent prescriptive literature on teaching was analyzed to develop a conceptual model for ordering prescriptive thought about teaching, imposing a rational order on diverse extant frameworks for viewing teaching. Seven existing schemata for ordering thought about teaching were summarized. Three dimensions of the teaching-learning process were identified and a question formulated from each for use as criteria for comparing the various formulations found in the literature. The three dimensions are 1) the learning: What is the nature of the learner? 2) the teaching-learning situation: How should teaching proceed? and 3) the goal: What should be the outcome of teaching? The taxonomic category system generated consists of the following four frameworks: 1) Teaching as Self-enhancement; 2) Teaching as Intellectual Achievement; 3) Teaching as Technology; and 4) Teaching as the Management of Contingencies. (A two-page bibliography is included with the description of each of the four positions.) (JS)