Problem and Group Instruction in the Fundamentals of Agricultural Production

The high level of teaching the fundamentals of production at Secondary General Schools contributes to increasing the quality of secondary general education. One of the methods of making the educational work in teaching the fundamentals of agricultural production more effective is problem and group instruction, which leads pupils to independent and conscious work, to a creative use of interrelations among subjects and thereby to a better preparation for further studies as well as for a practical occupation. Leading educationists from a number of countries (the USSR, the GDR, Poland, Italy and others) concern themselves with the idea of making instruction more effective and intensive, and they approach the solution of this problem in various ways. In Czechoslovakia the problem of raising the level of educational work in fundamentals of agricultural production is being investigated by an experimental introduction of the problem and group instruction into two Secondary General Schools — in Prague 3 and in Kroměříž. Pupils of the first grade of the Secondary General School, who are working in leading agricultural establishments (the Corn Research Institute and the Breeding Station) take part in small groups in solving research tasks under the guidance of experts. In this sort of experimental teaching some new methods of work are being applied which are customary at universities (pupils’ own study of literature and writing papers, scientific observations, records thereof and their elaboration, evaluation of research material, lectures on their own work, which the pupils give at seminars at the place of work etc.). At the same time great stress is laid on conscious work, on the use of interrelations among subjects and on a creative approach of the pupils to the solution of important problems. Although it is only 4 months since problem and group teaching was experimentally introduced, it has had a favourable influence on the pupils’ educationally, especially by increasing substantially pupils’ interest in work, by stimulating a creative approach to work in this as well as in other subjects. The pupils’ experimental work, which in this case is not an aim in itself, but an educational means, appears as one of the forms of making the teaching of the fundamentals of agricultural production as a subject more effective. The pupils of the two experimental schools will continue to work in the same way also in the 2nd and the 3rd grade and the difficulty of the tasks will be gradually increased.