CHAPTER 9

The Instructional Program

HEN ONE TURNS his attention to the instructional programs

that were offered in the 50 institutes, again the picture is one of rich diversity. No two of them were organized in precisely the same way. No two offered precisely the same courses and supplementary experiences. There were, however, certain features that characterized all, and others that were common enough to be considered dominant trends.

The first feature, common to all, was that institutes combined didactic instruction with small group interaction. This is the aspect of the institute program that differentiates it most sharply from the typical course a student takes in college. The enrollee did not just listen. He responded, reacted, participated.

The groups were of many different kinds, but they can be roughly classified under three headings. The first is the content-oriented group, with an assigned instructor or leader. Its purpose is mainly to provide for the kind of discussion through which important ideas can be explored and assimilated, to clear up errors and misconceptions, to deal with questions not anticipated by lecturers and textbook writers, and to provide for continuity in the total program. The principal obstacle to building such groups into an institute program is the difficulty of securing enough competent leaders. Not all qualified faculty members make good group leaders, and if some of the small groups are more rewarding to members than others are, discontent in the less successful groups is likely to appear.

The second kind of small group is the self-oriented group. Its purpose is to promote self-appraisal and an understanding of interpersonal relationships. Such groups furnish support for members who are undergoing difficult attitude changes. The problem that arises in the use of this kind of group in an institute program is that the time is too short to permit the complete working through of this essentially therapeutic process. Thus there is always the possibility that more anxiety may be mobilized in some group member than can

be dealt with in this limited situation. Nevertheless, many of the institute directors considered this an extremely important kind of enrollee experience and felt that it should be provided if at all possible. Good leaders are essential here also.

The third type of group is task-oriented. Such groups may listen to recorded interviews, prepare group reports, or analyze evaluation material. Special committees fall in this category. Leadership is less of a problem here, as these groups are student-directed. They enable their members to become acquainted and to learn from one another. Groups of this kind usually emerged in institutes, whether or not they had been provided for in the plans.

Group activity was a feature of institute experience about which both staff and enrollees were almost unanimously enthusiastic. It would seem desirable that it be made a permanent feature of institute structure, and that provision for leaders of the kinds of groups an institute decides to use be carefully made.

A second common feature of all programs was emphasis on the interdisciplinary approach to counselor education. Most counselortrainers would agree that breadth of view is essential, and that, along with education, such fields as psychology, sociology, anthropology, and psychiatry should be explored.

When it comes to specific plans and programs for institutes there is much less agreement as to what should be done. While all institutes made use of consultants and lecturers from various subject matter and professional areas, some placed much more emphasis upon the contributions of these representatives of the various disciplines. We can consider separately the utilization of the special lecturers called in for a day or two to make one particular contribution, and those having to do with the full-time staff. Opinions varied widely as to how useful the special lectures were. In some places, their value was ranked high by both enrollees and staff members. In others, this feature was considered the weakest part of the program. The difference seems to depend on how well these special contributions are coordinated with the total program. In discussing this matter at the conclusion of the 1959 summer institutes, directors made various suggestions for accomplishing this integration of each part with the whole. At the time a lecturer is invited to participate, the contribution he is expected to make can be clearly specified. He can be given an outline of the whole course to provide him with the context in which his contribution will appear. Special lecturers should be chosen for the ideas and viewpoints they have to contribute and not just because they are considered to be "big names." It is helpful to have regular staff members attend all such special sessions, so that they can integrate the ideas presented with the main body of the course. Group discussions of the content-oriented variety, following soon after presentations by experts, assist enrollees in fitting the material into an intelligible pattern. Few if any of the institute directors would recommend giving up special lectures by representatives of different disciplines and professions, but most of them would recommend more attention to problems of integration than they received in the initial institutes.

As indicated in the previous chapter, the regular faculty members most in demand are those whose fields of specialization are in the area where education and psychology overlap. The psychology of development, individual differences, motivation, learning, and personality can be regarded as the "basic science" of the counseling profession. Thorough knowledge of tests and measurements, and competence in interviewing, along with a knowledge of how such competence can be acquired, are also most likely to be found in this area that is intermediate between psychology and education.

If this general idea is accepted, it can be a useful guideline in recruiting future institute staffs. As the number of institutes increases and the regular counselor education programs grow, it may be increasingly difficult to obtain staff. Even during this first year

of the program there was some competition for staff members who had made reputations for themselves in the special field of counselor education. In subsequent years, it is clear that there will not be enough of such people to go around. Those who plan institutes will need to turn their attention to less well-known faculty members whose special competence lies in some part of the area referred to above. The fact that such persons can be drawn from either education or psychology faculties and sometimes from other sources as well, widens the range of possibilities that can be considered. Increasing the participation of psychologists in what is primarily an education program will be to the advantage of both education and psychology. The institute program may constitute a bridge that will connect education and psychology departments and lead to more traffic in both directions than there has been in recent years.

A third less prominent feature of the majority of institutes was field trips to educational institutions, counseling agencies, industries, and various other places of interest. Generally speaking, enrollees rated the value of this type of experience somewhat lower than other parts of the institute program, though there were notable exceptions, such as individual excursions which were considered to be among the high points of the summer.

A fourth feature of some institutes, not as common as those previously discussed, was a requirement that each enrollee work out a plan or project for his own particular school situation and write a paper about it. In many cases, opportunities to discuss these projects in individual interviews with staff members were provided.

Let us turn now to a particularly prominent part of the program offered by 33 of the institutes, a practicum in which enrollees counseled high school students under supervision. Although laboratory experiences, such as taking and giving tests, playing roles in interviews, and observing interviews by staff members, were included in practically all the institute programs, only those programs offering actual counseling experience are considered here as offering practicum. What was a good practicum program like? First, certain kinds of physical facilities were needed. The first essential was that there be a sufficient number of individual counseling offices so that enrollees would have places to meet their high school clients. Another essential or almost-essential, was tape recorders. All institutes that offered practicum used this equipment so that enrollees could play back their interviews with clients as many times as they liked. Typically enrollees were apprehensive about this at the beginning but became more and more convinced of the value of the experience as they continued. In addition to this equipment to make auditory

observation possible, 13 of the institutes offering practicum used one-way vision facilities. The enrollee's supervisor and some of his fellow students could sit on the dark side of a one-way vision screen or mirror and look on as well as listen.

High school clients were most commonly obtained by preparing ahead of time an announcement about the availability of the counseling service and circulating it through high schools in the city where the institute was to be held. Often parents were invited to participate in the counseling experience. In circumstances where this procedure for obtaining counselees was not feasible, high school students enrolled in special summer programs at the college were sometimes drawn in. Many institutes made a special attempt to secure gifted students for the practicum program so that counseling directed toward the utilization of talent could be specifically emphasized.

The operation of a practicum center made it possible for an institute to involve the enrollee in several different kinds of learning experience. He could observe interviews conducted by others, and learn from both their successes and their mistakes. He could play back his own tape-recorded interview as many times as he liked and thus have an opportunity to comprehend the full complexity of