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- Dr. Don Orlosky
College of Education Faculty Oral Histories
Dr. Don Orlosky
DO: I did become chair of the department, but that was fifteen years later. During the 1969-1970 academic year, they recruited Professor Bunnie Othanel Smith from the University of Illinois to join the faculty in 1970. The United States Office of Education (USOE) had funded a project about 1966 to develop a blueprint for school reform. The committee working on this task was bogged down. They employed Professor Smith to consolidate their ideas and prepare a final document. This final document was published by the AACTE in 1969 under the title “Teachers for the Real World”. Professor Smith was retiring from the University of Illinois and agreed to come to USF to continue his career along with funding from the USOE to help implement the ideas in “Teachers for the Real World.” Dean Manker and Professor Muntyan approached me to work with Professor Smith. And after meeting with him, I agreed to accept this assignment. He explained that one of the programs he wanted to emphasize was the development of protocols on film that portrayed concepts in classrooms that would help teachers diagnose students and classroom situations. I asked him if he thought this was possible, and he answered, “I’m not sure if I can do it, but I would like to try.” I thought that was an honest answer, and that was the first of many frank conversations we had as we worked together on numerous federally funded programs over the next eight years.
We worked closely with the Bureau of Educational Personal Development (BEPD) and provided supervision for 30-35 projects every year. Let me give you some of the federal jargon of the time, as it explains the structure of this operation. The BEPD referred to big “P” and little “p” which meant big “P” for a program and little “p” for a project within the program. They historically might fund 15 or 20 projects within a program, and each project would carry out the program with minimum assistance. Under their new approach, they decided to reduce the number of projects and create a coordinating unit from the money that previously would have gone to projects, and they designated this unit as a Leadership Training Institute (LTI). Professor Smith was asked to be in charge of an LTI that would provide technical assistance and supervision to projects within five programs. I became the associate director of the LTI and over the next eight years Professor Smith and I rotated between these two positions.
LB: Tell me more about the Leadership Training Institute.
DO: We were responsible for five programs. They were: Protocol Materials, Training Materials, Pilot Teacher Centers, Competency Based Teacher Education, and the Elementary Models Program. In addition to our positions as directors of the LTI, we had 15 to 17 educators from throughout the nation who served on the LTI panel and served as advisors and consultants to the various projects. We held a meeting somewhere in this country about every two weeks for nearly eight years, and I usually chaired the meetings. The various projects produced over 160 films and literally over 700 documents that focused on teacher education. The individuals involved in this enterprise were among the nation’s elite and were either national leaders at that time or became some of the most influential educators throughout the nation as time went by.
LB: That’s very illuminating. You know they always say professors are better known off campus. They are known for what they do for the field at large, and I think this is a good example of a project that was very important for a long period of time.
DO: Yes, I can underscore that. We would give presentations off campus at other institutions, major cities, and conferences and we would draw large crowds. I was invited to present our work for UNESCO in Paris, Wales, Germany, and throughout the United States. They always had large audiences who showed considerable interest in our work. We were asked to make a presentation to the USF faculty in the College of Education, and I think seven faculty members attended.
LB: I understand that.
DO: And that was not surprising.
LB: Did the Protocol Program become the basis for the Florida Teacher Competencies that were later developed for state testing and so forth?
DO: That had a lot to do with it. We would identify a concept and illustrate it on film. For example, let us take the difference between questioning and probing into the classroom teacher’s behavior. We define questioning as a case where a teacher asks a question and after a student responds, the teacher asks another student the same, or different, question, and continues throughout the classroom. But in probing you raise a question and after a student responds. You continue with that same student and probe deeper to determine what their rationale or basis was for their response. Our research tells us that under the questioning procedures that students “turn off” after they answer, but under probing, they remain engaged. You also get better responses under probing. This approach could also illustrate “wait time” as a concept to improve the quality of responses. Concepts such as these could be illustrated on film and included as competencies for teachers to utilize to improve their teaching. The 17 projects in the Protocol Program produced 162 films, and each film included four documents that described their research support, teacher manuals, and assessment instruments. These films and materials were distributed through the National Resource and Distribution Center that was housed in the FAO Building in the COE here at USF. These films were distributed to over 3,200 customers throughout the US and 18 foreign countries during the years 1974- 1980. When the funding ended, the best-selling films were placed in the USF library, and eventually they became technically obsolete but remained educationally sound.
LB: Amazing. When you came here there was a teacher corps program in existence. You were not necessarily a part of that, but what was your recollection of that program?
DO: I did meet with people here who were directing the teacher corps program and was asked by Dean Manker if I would be interested in directing the project, and I was not. I knew what the project was, but it called for more administration and less in the academic world than I wanted at that time. They went through two or three different directors during that time. Teacher corps was a good idea that was designed to help people, such as teacher aides, who wanted to become teachers to do so. The program also emphasized preparation for work in urban areas. There was an immersion component to the program that required a short period of residency in the Liberty City area near Miami. That cycle of the teacher corps continued until about 1973 when the USOE shifted to a policy of $1 million grants over a period of five years and required collaboration between school districts and universities. The director of this new thrust was Dr. Bill Smith, who worked closely with our LTI and later became the last US Commissioner of Education before it became a cabinet position. The budget for the Bureau of Education for Personnel Preparation (BEPD) that funded projects during this period was terminated in 1978.