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Programmed Instruction Revisited BY BB SKINNER IE PUBLIC SCTIOOL. was invented to bring the ser- vices of a private tulor to ‘more than one student at a time. As the number of stu- denis iereased, however, each student necessarily received less’attention. By the time the number haul reached 25 or 30, personal altention hi become spo- ic. Textbooks were invented to take over some of the work of the tulor, but ‘avo problems remained unsolved. What is done simultaneously by every mem: ber of a large group cannot be evaluated immediately, and what is taught to a large group cannot be precisely wheal ceach student is ready just al that moment to lear, Teaching machines were in- vented fo restore these important fea ‘tes of personal instruction. A BRIFF HISTOR More than 50 years ayo Sidney: Pres- sey, 4 professor il Ohio Slate Universi- ty, hailed "the coming ‘industrial revolu- tion’ in education.” In 1926 Pressey hhad described a machine that “tests and also teaches” (llustzation, this page). \ student studied a subject in the usual Way and then turned to the machine. It directed the student to the first item on ‘a multiple-choice test, and the student made a choice by pressing a numbered key. If the choice was right, the ma- chine moved on to the next item: if the choice was wrong, the student pressed another key. When the stodent went trough a fest a second time, the ma chine stopped only on those ilems on 2. SINNER fir ener the Department of Pychology, Harvard Unive, Cambridge, Mass which the student’ frst choice had been ‘wrong T had not heard of Pressey’s work when, ata meeting at the University of Pittsburgh in 1954, 1 demonstrated a machine designed to teach arithmetic, (photo on this page). In that machine, a Sirip of paper passes from one side of | the box (o the other, exposing a square section on which a problem is printed ‘Small holes are punched in the paper, and the student causes numerals 10 show through these holes by moving sliders. ‘The sludent then tests what he or she has done by turing a knob on the front of the box. If the student has solved the problem correctly, anew problem moves into place, if the answer is wrong, the student must reset the sliders’ (The photo on page 106 shows ‘a more sophisticated version of this ma- chine, which [BM made for me a few years later, It has more sliders, and it has letters as well as numerals.) A re- cent advertisement for a home computer showed a young girl solving a problem inarithmetic in much the same way, ex- cept that she was pressing keys, My machine differed from Pressey's in several important ways. First, stu- dents came to my machine without hav- ing studied any special material before- hand; they sere being taught, mot test. ced. Second, and more important, the siuidents composed their responses i stead of choosing them. That is the difference between, say, having a tead ing knowledge and having a speaking knowledge of a second language. can make an excellent score on a ‘multiple-choice test of a second lan- guage even when one cannot speak the language well. Phere is a similar (but Jess obvious) difference between “read ‘ng mathematics” and “speaking mathe matics” — the difference most of us once felt when we followed casily enough as the author of a text solved ‘a sample problem and then stumbled When We tried to solve similar problems by ourselves. The third, and perhaps the most important, difference was that Pressey’s machine simply gave an im- mediate evaluation of each response, ‘whereas in my machine the items were srranged in a special sequence, so that, after completing the material in frame 1, the students were better able to tackle frame 2, and their behavior became steadily more effective as they passed {rom frame to frame. | began to speak of “programmed instruction,”> simple arithmetic or spelling, too slow and awkward for most of the things T wanted to teach, So I designed a different machine (see page 107), which had 30 frames of a program printed radially on a large disk. A single Frame appeared in an opening inthe ma chine. The student wrote a esponse on a strip of paper in another opening. By lifting a lever, the student then moved what had been written under a trans parent cover, where it could not be changed, and uncovered the comrect re- sponse. In 1958 a dozen of these ma: chines were placed in a slf-instruction room in Sever Hall inthe Harvard Yard Gee page 168) for use in my course, Natural Sciences 114, James Holla and I wrote the program, which was eventually published in workbook form 3 The first of about 2,300 items reads, “A doctor taps your knee (patel- Jar tendon) witha rubber hammer to test you and the student writes “Thal sort of thing can also be done more conveniently with computers, of course, The machines I have described fre museum pieces, and — appropriate ly enough ~ all of them are now housed in the Smithsonian Tae TRACHING MAGIINE MOVEMENT Twas soon saying that, with the help of teaching machines and programmed instruction, students could lea twice as much in the same time and with the ¥ ‘same effort as in a standard classroom. Other kinds of machines soon appeared. In some of them the responses were chosen, as in Pressey's machine: in others the responses were composed, as in mine. Great numbers of programs swere written. Most of them were pub lished in workbook form, with correct answers hidden beneath a sliding mask oor found on another page. By the end of 1962, according to an editorial in Science, 250 programmed courses would be available in elementary, sec ondary, and college mathematies; 60, in science; 25, in electronics and engincer- ing; 25: in foreign languages; and 120, in social studies. Many of these courses ‘were excellent A colleague once told me that he had decided that he ought to |xnow more about biochemistry, so he had bought a programmed text. “It was amazing|” he said, “Ina week | knew Diochemistry!” He did not mean that he ‘was then a biochemist, of course, but he hha Learmed a great deal in a remarkably short period of time with very litle ef- fort Programmed instruction, with or ‘without machines, was quickly adopted by industry, but the education establish iment was not impressed. It was as if the automobile industry had been shown how to build cars in hall the time at hal the cost and had said, “No.” There were reasons [or this, of course. The ma- chines were crude, the programs were untested, and there Were no ready stan dards of comparison. ‘Teaching ma- chines would have cost money that was rot bndgeled. Teachers mistinderstood the role of the machines and were fear ful of losing their jobs, Nor did a ‘consensus ith favor of adopting these machines exist among administrators, school boss, and. parents To administrative problems would have ereated even more serions trouble What would happen if students reall Teamned twice as fast? If first-grade st dents covered second-grade material as well, what would the second-grade teacher do? [ow soon would students, center the job market? That problem could have heen solved by teaching y other things ~ surely & happy so- lution, but one that would have required the retraining of teachers, the restoc ing of librafies and storerooms, and many other changes. Even more distup- tive would have been the inevitable abandonment of the phalanx system, IF tach student could advance at his or her own pace, how were students to be grouped? What woul happen to the homeroom? I ywould be unfair to say that teach: ing machines and programmed instruc tion were not adopted mare quickly sin ply becanse improving education would Eause foo much trouble. A more Likely obstacle was a failure to understand the principles on which they were based. A Change was needed in “educational psy chology,” hut this need was obscured By an evcit that occurred at about the same time: the Russians put Sputnik T into ‘orbit, Americans were stunned. How could the Russians have beaten us into futer space? Something must be wrong ‘with American education ‘Congress quickly passed the National Defense Education Act, and money was made available to improve teaching especially in the arcas of science mathematics. A group of educators met al Woods Hole to plan the use of these funds, Jerome Bruner reported the group's recommendations in his book, ‘The Process of Education, which be- OCTORER 1986 08

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