- B. F. Skinner , “Why We Need Teaching Machines,” Harvard Educational Review , 31 : 4 , p. 397
- Silberman , “What Are the Limits of Programmed Instruction?” Phi Delta Kappan , XLIV : 6 , p. 296 . The answer to the question in Silberman's title: none.
- William R. Uttal , “On Conversational Interaction,” in John E. Coulson (ed.), Programmed Learning and Computer-Based Instruction ( New York : John Wiley , 1962 ), p. 172 .
- Homm , “The Rationale of Teaching by Skinner's Machines,” in A. A. Lumsdaine and Robert Glaser (eds.), Teaching Machines and Programmed Learning: A Source Book ( Washingington , D.C. : Department of Audiovisual Instruction of the NEA , 1960 ), p. 136 .
- Ibid. Other equally sanguine prognostications will be found in Simon Ramo , “A New Technique of Education,” Engineering and Science Monthly , 21 , pp. 17 – 22 , and in James D. Finn, “Automation and Instruction: III, Technology and the Instructional Process,” A V Communication Review, 8:1, pp. 5–26.
- James G. Holland states, “Aside from the over-generalization inevitable from … ill-defined variables [selected in research studies], even these relatively uninteresting problems are inadequately treated. Despite the overwhelming recognition of the importance of quality in the program, we are seldom given information for evaluating the program.” (New Directions in Teaching Machine Research,” in Coulson , op. cit. , p. 47 .)
- See, for example, Lawrence M. Stolurow , Teaching by Machine ( Washington , D.C. : U.S. Government Printing Office , 1961 ), Chapter VII.
- Joseph W. Rigney and Edward B. Fry , “Programming Techniques,” A V Communication Review , 9 : 5 , p. 7 .
- See, for example, Stolurow , “Let's be Informed on Programmed Instruction,” Phi Delta Kappan , XLIV : 6 : “… there is no objective evidence from research to support the need for a machine to assist student learning.… The primary factor that makes instruction effective is the program…. Existing programmed materials alone when used in periodic form will teach as well as when used in a machine.” (pp. 255 f)
- Standard criticisms of reinforcement theory, succintly put, may be readily found in Harry Harlow , “Mice, Monkeys, Men, and Motives,” Psychological Review , 60 , pp. 23 – 32 and Donald Snygg, “The Tortuous Path of Learning Theory,” Audio Visual Instruction, 7:1, pp. 8–12. A criticism of B. F. Skinner's operant conditioning version of reinforcement theory, at once remarkably concise and comprehensive, may be found in Noam Chomsky's review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior, in Language, 35:1, pp. 26–58.
- The Principles of Programmed Learning ( Albuquerque , N.M. : Teaching Machines Incorporated , 1961 ). This programmed course on programming actually presents five “principles,” but the fifth one, the “principle of student testing,” is not a principle of teaching or learning at all, but a technique for revising an instructional program. The other four principles discussed below are mentioned by all workers in the field.
- Part of the difficulty in putting this principle into practice stems from the fact that it is not altogether clear just what a “step” refers to—whether it be item length, difficulty, sequence, or what. For further discussion on this point, see A. A. Lumsdaine , “Some Issues Concerning Devices and Programs for Automated Learning,” in Lumsdaine and Glaser , op. cit. , pp. 517 – 539 .
- Especially Rules V and VI in the “Rules for the Direction of the Mind,” in E. S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (trans.), The Philosophical Works of Descartes , I: ( New York : Dover , 1955 ).
- See, for example, B. F. Skinner , “Teaching Machines,” Science , 128 , pp. 969 – 977 .
- If it is claimed that the student is really successively approximating the “content of the course,” it must then be asked, what is the content of the course? If the answer is: all the frames in the program, then again, nothing is being successively approximated in the Skinnerian sense; rather, the learner is simply gradually assimilating the program. But if the content of the course is called something other than all the frames in the program, then it must be asked, why didn't the frames directly present this other something for the student to acquire?
- See John F. Feldhusen , “Taps for Teaching Machines,” Phi Delta Kappan , XLIV : 6 , pp. 265 – 267 .
- For an analysis of a closely related conceptual tangle, see John Hanson , “Learning by Experience,” in B. O. Smith and Robert H. Ennis (eds.), Language and Concepts in Education ( Chicago : Rand McNally , 1961 ), pp. 1 – 23 .
- Feldhusen, op. cit.
- Ibid.
- See Crowder , “Automatic Tutoring by Intrinsic Programming,” in Lumsdaine and Glaser ( op. cit. ), pp. 286 – 298 .
- The distinction between “intentional” and “success” uses of the verb “to teach” is relevant to this point. See Israel Scheffler , The Language of Education ( Springfield , Ill. : Charles C Thomas , 1960 ), pp. 41 f.
The Educational Forum
Volume 28, 1964 - Issue 2