Five Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education.

Five Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education by Daniel D. Pratt and Associates. Kreiger Publishing Company, Malabar, Florida. 1998, 289 pages, $32.50 Cloth, ISBN 0-89464-937-X. Reviewed by David L. Dollar.

Five Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education is a carefully written, well-researched analysis of five major philosophical and practical orientations to teaching. This book is intended for teachers of adults, whether they are teaching in formal or informal settings. It will also prove useful for those who wish to explore the deeper structures that define teaching. This challenging, affirming, and stimulating book draws equally from theoretical analysis and empirical research. It offers an in-depth examination of the intentions and beliefs that give direction and justification to teaching and to how and what teachers think about teaching. Daniel D. Pratt both authors and edits this respectful, honest, and provocative account of teaching practices and philosophies. Pratt is on the faculty in the Department of Educational Studies at The University of British Columbia, Canada. Front the Yukon to Arizona, and from Seattle to Shanghai, Pratt has been exploring what teaching means for over two decades.

Pratt studied 253 adult educators in his attempt to understand what teaching means across vastly different settings. These teachers were asked questions about teaching, learning, motivation, the goals of education, and the influence of context on their teaching. Their responses reveal five qualitatively different perspectives, or points of view, on teaching adults that form the conceptual backbone of the book. These five perspectives on teaching are as follows: (a) Transmission--Effective Delivery of Content; (b) Apprenticeship--Modeling Ways of Being; (c) Developmental--Cultivating Ways of Thinking; (d) Nurturing--Facilitating Self-Efficacy; and (e) Social Reform--Seeking a Better Society.

Pratt strengthens this book by presenting these five perspectives differently than any earlier literature on this topic has presented them. First, the perspectives are derived from several years of teaching and research in five different countries (Canada, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States). Thus, they are empirically derived from practitioners rather than scholars' intuitive knowledge. Second, the perspectives are portrayed in both theoretical and practical terms. They are examined and analyzed as a cluster of actions, intentions, and beliefs and described in contexts of actual practice. Finally, this book presents the five perspectives as legitimate views of teaching, subject to variations only in the quality of implementation and not in the nature of their underlying values. Consequently, the perspectives are presented as legitimate forms of commitment to teaching with corresponding ways of thinking, acting, and believing about the instruction of adults. Presenting these five perspectives not as methods of teaching, but as unique constellations of actions, intentions, and beliefs, provokes critical reflection on issues of evaluation and quality while also respecting diversity within adult and higher education.

Pratt divides the book into three sections. Section I provides an introduction and overview of a general model of teaching. This teaching model provides the conceptual framework through which teaching is examined and from which the five perspectives emerge. Following this presentation, he discusses how this model can be adapted to accommodate variations in commitment to particular actions, intentions, and beliefs. This section concludes with a brief introduction to the five qualitatively different perspectives on teaching. Section I provides a conceptual platform that helps the reader interpret the more detailed descriptions of the five perspectives in Section II.

Section II presents the five perspectives in detail, as described and advocated by the authors who wrote about the perspective that best fit their teaching backgrounds. The five chapters in this section are written in the styles and voices of the contributing authors; this allows the passion and conviction associated with each perspective to emerge unfiltered through the narration of those who live within each perspective. The chapters in Section II represent a "mirror" for readers to look into and see if they find an image of themselves in that teaching perspective.

Finally, in Section III, Pratt presents both an analysis of the perspectives and comments on the difficult matter of evaluating teaching. He deftly manages to do this while also respecting a plurality of perspectives on teaching. Pratt begins this section by introducing three sets of key belief structures that can be used as analytical tools to compare and contrast perspectives. The belief structures discussed are epistemic beliefs including knowledge, learning, and evaluation of learning; normative beliefs including role, responsibility, and relationship; and procedural beliefs including tactical knowledge and strategic beliefs. The next section applies these tools to analyze and reveal the essential structures and commitments that differentiate the five perspectives. Section III ends with an explanation of how teaching can be evaluated in ways that are equitable, yet rigorous, by examining both substantive and technical aspects of teaching.

This highly recommended and important contribution to the literature on teaching adults is not a series of expert proclamations about pedagogy but a thorough exploration of how 253 teachers live out their different commitments to five honored traditions in the field of adult education. This book represents an evenhanded, respectful assessment of the merits and potential shortcomings of each of these five different orientations. Pratt's intent is to show that the diversity of teaching is not accidental but is a manifestation of deeply held beliefs applied to a vast array of learners, subjects, and contexts. This book will achieve the most success when its readers take it off their bookshelves and use it to reflect upon their own expectations of themselves as teachers. Once readers find themselves practicing, observing, evaluating, and discussing teaching in full enjoyment of its many faces of excellence, they will have made this book their own.

David L. Dollar teaches chemistry at the South Campus of Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. [e-mail]