Benjamin DeKalbe Wood (November 10, 1894 – July 6, 1986) was an American
educator
A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching.
''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...
,
researcher, and director /
professor at
Columbia University and an expert in the educational field.
Early life
Wood was born in
Brownsville, Texas
Brownsville () is a city in Cameron County in the U.S. state of Texas. It is on the western Gulf Coast in South Texas, adjacent to the border with Matamoros, Mexico. The city covers , and has a population of 186,738 as of the 2020 census. It ...
, on November 10, 1894. He attended the
Brownsville area schools,
Mission High School, and the
University of Texas.
Later life and death
Woods retired in 1960
but remained active. In 1969, he was given the Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service.
[ Wood died at the age of 91 of a heart attack on July 8, 1986.]
Legacy
Wood established the Elbenwood Fund for Education Research, the Ben D. Wood Fellowship Economic Fund and the Institute for Learning Technologies Fund.[
]
Committees and societies
Wood was a Phi Beta Kappa and a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Psychological Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...
.[
In academics, he was a curator of ]Stephens College
Stephens College is a private women's college in Columbia, Missouri. It is the second-oldest women's educational establishment that is still a women's college in the United States. It was founded on August 24, 1833, as the Columbia Female Acade ...
, and the chair or director of 20 national education committees.[ He was a director of Eastman's teaching film experiment, the ]American Council of Education
The American Council on Education (ACE) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) U.S. higher education association established in 1918. ACE's members are the leaders of approximately 1,700 accredited, degree-granting colleges and universities and higher educatio ...
test service, and the Commonwealth Fund for research on measurement of achievement in college courses.[
Wood served on the New York state board of regents' examining board, and on committees for the American Institute of Accountants.][
]
Works
Books published by Wood are:
* ''The Measurement of College Work'' (1921)
* ''The Measurement of Law School Work'' (1924)
* ''Columbia Research Bureau American History Test'' (1926)
* ''Motion Pictures in the Classroom'' (1929)
* ''Study of the Relations of Secondary and Higher Education in Pennsylvania'' (1938)
* ''Our Air-age World: A Textbook in Global Geography'' (1945)
* ''Geography of the World'' (1959)
References
Sources
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Further reading
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wood, Benjamin D.
1894 births
1986 deaths
20th-century American psychologists
Educational psychologists
Ethologists
American eugenicists
Teachers College, Columbia University alumni
Columbia University faculty
Teachers College, Columbia University faculty
People from Brownsville, Texas
University of Texas alumni
20th-century American zoologists