Source:
Saettler, P. (1990). The Evolution of American Educational Technology.
Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Inc.
Franklin
Bobbitt & W.W. Charters -- 1912
Frankin Bobbitt broke apart or itemised curriculum into hundreds of
specific measurable objectives in order that schools be held more
accountable. This was the beginning of competency based and performance
based education. He was most interested in job specifications of industry.
W.W. Charters dissected major objectives into minor objectives to
facilitate curriculum delivery. Saettler comments that Charter's approach
was implementation of previously selected objectives, while Bobbitt
intended to "discover curriculum objectives" by analysing
what people do (p. 288).
Efficiency
Period -- 1913
Saettler, on page 292 states that the "scientific management
gave educators a sense of security and protection from public criticism"
which in a way is much like our educational system today. This was
primarily regarding training following the industrial approach.
Sidney
L. Pressey -- 1925
This educator developed a number of devices that were the forerunners
of programmed instruction including the multiple choice machine, the
punchboard device, and others. His multiple choice machine taught
tested and waited for the correct answer while recording all attempts
and also preceded immediate feedback -- but lacked corrective instructions.
Ralph
Tyler -- 1929
His rationale included these four steps: One identify objectives.
Two, selecting educational experiences to meet the objective. Three,
organising the experiences. Four, evaluating the results. His work
was the precursor to educational systems movements relating to behavioural
objectives.
Neobehaviorism
-- 1930
Neobehaviorism has many versions! Edwin Guthrie believed in classical
conditioning rather than reinforcement. Edward Tolman emphasised cognitive
aspects of learning.
Hullian
Era -- 1940's
This time period in the history of CAI and behavioralism, included
people such as Clark L. Hull who effected theorists by stating that
"learning involves stimulus response conditioning by repeated
need satisfaction" (Saettler, p. 287). His theory included: the
role of scientific theory, recognition of complex phenomena, testing
hypotheses and improving experimental design. His theory became less
popular in the '50's because of it's complexity and that it did not
predict human behaviour accurately enough.
Norman
A. Crowder -- 1950's
Within this period were the development of Phase Checks which were
several training devices to teach and test a skill. Norman Crowder
involved in US Air Force troubleshooting and training developed a
process where branching text presented material, tested the learner,
provided feedback and branched to corrective instruction or new information
based on supplied responses. Branching proved that Crowder's process
was more advanced than Pressey's M-Ch. machine.
Gordon
Pask -- 1953
Invention of an adaptive machine for Computer Assisted Instruction.
B.F.
Skinner -- 1954
B.F. Skinner, known as the "Father of the Programmed Instruction
Movement" (Saettler, p. 296), demonstrated at the University
of Pittsburgh his teaching machine to teach spelling and arithmetic.
This began a revival in the interest of individualised instruction
and changing development, testing and evaluation practices. Hence
the birth of the "teaching machine revolution" (Saettler,
p.294). His interests focused on the process rather then the machine,
but other people tended to focused on the machine.
Benjamin
Bloom -- 1956
This educator and his colleagues developed three taxonomies of learning
in the cognitive domain, affective domain, and psychomotor domain.
Most educators are familiar with the famous Bloom's Taxonomy for the
cognitive domain.
First
Users of Programmed Instruction -- 1956-58
1956 -- Programmed Instruction (PI) by
B.F. Skinner and James G. Holland at Harvard University.
1957 -- PI used in Elementary school
by Douglas Porter in a year long experiment in Second and Third Grade
spelling.
1957 -- PI used for a second time at
a college level by Evans et al. Printed program in a book format simulated
teaching machines at the University of Pittsburgh.
1958 -- PI used for the first time in
a Secondary School by Eigen and Komoski who attempted to teach math.
Early 1960's -- B.F. Skinner now the
leading behaviourist due to operant conditioning theory outlines concepts
of reinforcement combined with applications in teaching machines and
programmed instruction with emphasis on reinforcement not just presentation.
Behavioural objectives with measurable outcomes were integral concepts.
1960 -- Teaching Machines & Programmed
Instruction is popular in the 60's because of behavioralism. Shaping
in learners took place by controlling amounts of information allowing
responses and providing feedback.
Kenneth
Oberholtzer, O.M. Moore, English 2600 at Manhasset & Denver PLATO
-- 1960
1960 -- Kenneth Oberholtzer a superintendent
of Denver public schools provided opportunity to teacher to become
trained as programmers.
1960 -- O.M. Moore developed the "autotelic
responsive environment" (Saettler, p.306) system for teaching
nursery school children to read.
1960 -- A Grade 7 /8 English 2600 Program
in Long Island New York met with mixed results. Difficulty with their
control group inhibited accurate results.
1960-61 -- English 2600 Program in Denver
shows an increase in results for accelerated classes, no change for
normal students and poor results for low achievers. This program was
discarded in favour of individualised instruction so that student
results are more homogeneous.
1960 -- PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic
Teaching Operations), from the University of Illinois. This drill
and practice tutorial model CAI, TUTOR programming language incorporates
simple branching. Involved were touch screens, audio, slide shows,
music synthesisers, slide projectors and lab apparatus. PLATO did
not purport improved results. PLATO is still around today. As an aside,
the author had a long discussion with a sales person for PLATO at
a conference late last year, and they predominantly use CD's now.
Same branching concept though.
1960-62 -- Del Barcus trained Denver
teachers a programmed instruction process where students were to teach
word recognition in Spanish. Results were best were students received
a combination of regular teaching and PI.
Robert
Mager, Finn-Perry & Machine-Program Dichotomy Center for Programmed
Instruction -- 1962
1962 -- Robert Mager wrote Preparing
Instructional Objectives postulating that objectives should be presented
in performance terms. What resulted was "criterion-referenced
behavioural objectives" (Saettler, p.290).
1962 -- Finn-Perry Survey points our
the Machine Program Dichotomy. Companies were developing software
and hardware in great numbers but were not basing their work on research.
1962-63 -- Center for Programmed Instruction
researched by way of a survey to determine patterns of PI. PI was
most common in JH schools and mainly in math (60%), LA (21%) foreign
language (4%), Science (3%) and S.S. (3%) (Saettler, p.279).
Keller
Plan -- 1963
F.S. Keller and the Keller Plan which had the following characteristics:
Student directed pace, mastery learning, lectures and demonstrations,
written teacher/student communication and use of proctors to increases
individualised learning and tutoring. Berliner criticised the Keller
Plan because students needed to study 20 to 40% more then regular
students and the drop out rate was higher.
Patrick
Suppes & Richard Atkinson -- 1963-65
Development of a CAI drill and practice behavioralist program for
math at Stanford University. In 1967 the Computer Curriculum Corporation
(CCC) with William Estes developed CAI drill and practice program
for both Math and reading were developed. Even up to the late 1970's
the reading program did not show much success. In the '80's they added
digitised speech and by 1984 was based upon the UNIX system.
Individually
Prescribed Instruction (IPI) -- 1964
Bloom's Taxonomy for affective domain was introduced which included
the receiving or attending, responding, valuing, organisation, and
value analysis.
In the same year, Individually Prescribed Instruction (IPI) which
was developed by the Leaning Research and Development Center of the
university of Pittsburgh. This program was developed for use of K
to 6 reading, math and science. It had pretests, prescribed learning
based on behavioural objectives and post tests. Eventually became
obsolete with increased costs.
Individually
Guided Education (IGE) -- 1965
Hergert Klausmeier's project "IGE" assessed student needs,
instructional objectives and programs were planned and re-assessed.
Up to 3000 students in elementary and middle schools participated
in this program. Innovative practices such as: team teaching, non-graded
classes and cross age tutoring were involved. By the late 1970's this
program ended because of funding.
Program
for Learning in Accordance with Needs (PLAN) -- 1966
Led by John C. Flanagan, students were intended to work on modules
with about five objectives using two weeks of instructional time.
Learning was assessed with remedial activities and retesting done
when required as well as record keeping. Became obsolete due to cost
of updating.
TICCIT
-- 1969
Time-Shared, Interactive, Computer-Controlled, Information Television,
(TICCIT), by Mitre Corporation of Brigham Young University, was a
CAI program based upon drill and practice. It was a low cost alternative
to traditional instruction in community colleges. This program excelled
in student control features and on-line help, and advertised that
it increased scores in math and LA composition. It was not a resounding
success due to lack of enthusiastic staff use.
Leon
Lessinger, Decline of Programmed Instruction --1960's - 70's
Leon Lessinger encouraged accountability of schools by analysing success
based on behavioural objectives.
Late 1960's -- The decline of PI. Predominantly
the result of unrealistic expectations led to disappointing results.
Students in their infinite resourcefulness found ways to circumvent
the machine or got poor results after receiving programmed instruction.
This form of instruction became less popular as research increased
in "educational and teaching technology" (Saettler, p.303).
Hopeful advertisement marketing these programs did not result in successful
learning as they said.
Performance
Contracting -- 1969-72
Educational institutions and government begin to turn to private business
for educational solutions. Saettler recounts that funding was made
available for "the development of learning systems to improve
pupil performance in reading and arithmetic as measured by standardised
achievement tests" (p. 293). Results did not improve and funding
was ceased in 1972.
Computer-Assisted
Instruction (CAI) -- 1971
Control Data Corporation (CDC) and Mitre Corporation were awarded
contracts to develop CAI where the best program would emerge due to
marketplace competition. PLATO started in 1961 and TICCIT in 1969
were the results. Drill and proactive and behaviourist based -- author
controlled -- were the most predominant CAI based programs. Problems
encountered with this form were: technical problems, availability
of CAI in the school setting, lack of quality software, teacher inexperience
and cost of programs.
Robert
Gagne & Leslie Briggs --1974
Behavioural objectives were proposed with five components: "action,
object, situation, tools and constraints and capability to be learned"
(Saettler, p. 290-1). Content and method could now be distinguished
from the behavioural objective pointing toward an ability to predict
student capability and thus curriculum.
Decline
of Individualised Instruction -- Mid 1970's
Decline was due inconclusive benefits from individualised instruction.
Educational and teaching technology was coming to the fore.
Mastery
Learning -- Late 1970's
Bloom, Block and Morrison's work on behavioural objectives suggested
that instructional objectives for specific units of learning could
be established and evaluated to indicate mastery of those objectives.
The only thing it worked well with was incremental learning. Synthesising,
communication, divergent thinking and objectives from the affective
domain were not so promising....
Introduction
of the Microcomputer -- 1977
CAI hardware changed with the introduction of the microcomputer. Modern
cognitive psychology was replacing behavioralism.
