Ralph W. Tyler: biography and contributions of this American educator.

A summary of the life of Ralph W. Tyler, one of the most influential educators in history.

Ralph W. Tyler has been considered one of the most important U.S. educators of the 20th century, thanks to his work and research in the field of education.Tyler, thanks to his work and research in the field of education in his country, highlighting his curriculum model, which will be explained in this article.

Tyler's curriculum model has been defined by its author as a rational method that has been nourished by other disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, economics and organization in order to search for the foundations that can be contributed on the basis of science applied to the field of education.

This curricular model sought to elaborate a study program in the educational centers in a functional way and in accordance with the demands of the students, as well as those of the center, in order to prepare the students in the best possible way for their future university stage and also for their adult stage.

Here you will find a biography of Ralph W. Tyler's biographywith which to know his long trajectory dedicated to the field of the education.

Brief biography of Ralph W. Tyler

Ralph W. Tyler was born in the city of Chicago (United States) on April 22, 1902.. His father, William A. Tyler was a reverend.

He graduated from Donas University (Nebraska) and later, in 1923, he obtained his master's degree from the University of Nebraska. In 1927, Tyler earned his doctorate at the University of Chicago.

While earning his Ph.D. he worked as a lecturer at the University of Nebraska (1922-1927), and later Tyler was hired as a professor at the University of North Carolina (1922-1927). was hired as a professor at the University of North Carolina, where he taught for 2 years.where he taught for 2 years.

Work as a professor and researcher at Ohio State University.

After concluding his work as a professor in North Carolina, Tyler was transferred to was transferred to teach education at Ohio State University, combining it with work at the University of North Carolina. and combined it with work as a research associate in the university's Office of Educational Research, where he worked for a decade.

In 1934, he published a paper entitled Constructing Achievement Tests.

Introducing the "eight-year study"

Tyler had specialized in a method for measuring the application of educationalBefore coming to the University of Chicago to get his doctorate, he had conducted "the eight-year study" which was used to measure the degree to which students were able to retain the information that professors provided in their classes.

With this study, it was possible to see which students learned best by going at their own pace, and which were the advantaged students who were able to retain a greater amount of information, which made it easier for them to learn.

Tyler even met with the chancellor of the University of Chicago to present his method with the aim of implementing it at the university. and, despite the fact that the university was committed to the classical model of education prevalent at the time, the chancellor decided to take a chance and hire Tyler as chief examiner and head of the Examination Board, as well as professor of education and chairman of the Department of Education. Tyler then accepted and returned to Chicago in order to implant his study at the University of Chicago.

He went on to publish a paper entitled "Appraisal and Recording of Student Progress," with the collaboration of E.R. Smith, in 1942.

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Dean of Social Sciences

In 1946, Tyler was appointed acting dean of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago and, two years later, he was officially named dean. During his tenure as dean he was able to streamline committees among the various departments of the university and promoted the implementation of interdisciplinary studies on the faculty.

Tyler also became involved in university life and contributed to a radio program in Chicago, where he participated in a round table discussion on education. In addition, during this time he was in charge of periodically publishing the results he obtained from his research in the field of education.

His contributions to education in the mid-20th century.

In 1943, Tyler was hired to work as an official director of the examining staff of the United States Armed Forces. During that 11-year tenure, Tyler was responsible for administering a series of tests that measured the effectiveness of military academy training programs.. In 1949, he published a paper entitled "Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction".

In 1953, Tyler left the University of Chicago to embark on new projects in California. There he founded the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, of which he also served as director.of which he also served as director. In order to make this new project a reality, he obtained funding from the Ford Foundation.

In the 1960s, Tyler embarked on a project with several colleagues on the National Assessment of Education for Progress, charged with measuring educational achievement in the country.

In 1965, he collaborated in the drafting of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and in 1967, he completed his work on the National Assessment of Educational Progress.In 1967, he concluded his work as director of the center he had founded in 1953, with the help of the Ford Foundation.

In 1976, he managed to publish a work entitled "Perspectives on American Education". It is also worth mentioning his work published in 1986 for the International Journal of Education entitled "Changing Concepts of Educational Evaluation".

Final years and death

Throughout the 1980s, he traveled continuously from California to the University of Massachusetts to teach and serve as a consultant to the Coalition for School Improvement.. His style of testing was widely known throughout the country and even in several foreign countries, even being renamed "Tyler Raciónale".

His method had at first been rejected as unorthodox because it advocated the need for the advocating the need to involve parents as well as teachers at all levels of school reforms.

The main purpose of the curricular method that Tyler promulgated throughout his life was for students to learn to defend themselves and to function properly as citizens within society.

It is noteworthy that Tyler advised six U.S. Presidents during his long career as a researcher in the methods during his long career as a researcher of teaching methods and a forerunner of his curriculum model.

On February 18, 1994, Ralph W. Tyler died of cancer, which he was unable to overcome, at the age of 92.

Ralph W. Tyle's Curricular Model

The Tyleian curriculum model arose as a result of his "eight-year study", which was based on a progressive model of education and had been very influential in both his teaching and research work throughout his career.

Building on his model, Ralph W. Tyler spent many years researching the curricula of different educational centers, establishing a prediction about the future success of each student during their academic stage at university based on their relationship with the curricular skills during their time in secondary education.

After concluding his study on the curricular model he investigated what guidelines each student should follow, based on his or her own abilities, in order to achieve a good academic trajectory during his or her time as a high school student. during his or her time as a secondary school student. As a result of this research and the conclusions he developed, in 1949, he published a book entitled "Basic Principles of Curriculum and Instruction".

According to Tyler's research, to choose the most appropriate curricular model for each secondary school, the following four questions must first be answered:

• What educational objectives does the school want its students to achieve?
• What teaching method will the students require in order to achieve their objectives?
• What didactic resources will the school use to help its students?
• How can we evaluate whether the students have achieved their objectives?

Likewise, Tyler believed that a good educational curriculum model should cover three fundamental needsas we will explain briefly below.

First, a good curricular model should meet the learning needs that each individual student has, according to his or her own interests, personal development and capacity to learn.

Second, a curriculum model, properly employed, should focus on teaching students on the basis of the values and needs of the society in which they live, as well as the principles that drive that society..

Thirdly, a properly implemented curricular model should teach its students a set of knowledge that can be knowledge that can then be applied to the world of work.. In other words, it should focus on providing a type of information to its students that can then be applicable, giving similar importance to the practical part of the subjects as to the theoretical part, which facilitates a consolidation of the knowledge acquired.

Thus, a good curricular model would be one that can adequately answer the four questions above, and that also takes into account these three fundamental needs.