Programmed instruction

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Programmed instruction is the name of the technology invented by the behaviorist B.F. Skinner to
improve teaching. It is based on his theory of verbal behavior as a means to accelerate and increase
conventional educational learning.
It typically consists of self-teaching with the aid of a specialized textbook or teaching machine that
presents material structured in a logical and empirically developed sequence or sequences.
Programmed instruction may be presented by a teacher as well, and it has been argued that the
principles of programmed instruction can improve classic lectures and textbooks.
[1]
Programmed
instruction allows students to progress through a unit of study at their own rate, checking their own
answers and advancing only after answering correctly. In one simplified form of PI, after each step,
they are presented with a question to test their comprehension, then are immediately shown the
correct answer or given additional information. However the objective of the instructional
programming is to present the material in very small increments.
[2]
The more sophisticated forms of
programmed instruction may have the questions or tasks programmed well enough that the
presentation and test modelan extrapolation from traditional and classical instructionis not
necessarily utilized.
Contents
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1 Programmed learning
2 Personalized System of Instruction
3 Errorless discrimination
4 Programmed instruction today
5 Notes
6 External links
Programmed learning[edit]
This idea was later adapted by Robert M. Gagn, who invented programmed learning for use in
teaching in schools. The terms programmed learning and programmed instruction are used
synonymously by most people but some give the terms a more nuanced meaning. For them, the
difference between programmed instruction (PI) and programmed learning (PL) is that PI is intended
to modify behavior, whereas PL is used for teaching facts and skills. To the behavioral psychologist
the learning of facts and skills are definitely modifications of behavior. The learner's behavioral
repertoire has been expanded by the knowledge of facts and skills. Some use the term programmed
instruction to imply the increase (or decrease if that is the desired outcome) in the probability of
emitting the behavior, such as when an autistic patient is taught and reinforced to make eye contact.
However, those who make no distinction between the terms would say, for example, that a
programmed instructional unit to teach calculus to calculate a minimum or maximum of a parabola
increases the probability that the technique will be used when confronting problems with parabolas.
Personalized System of Instruction[edit]
Personalized System of Instruction or (PSI), developed by Fred S. Keller, was another idea for how
to incorporate programmed learning into the classroom.
[3]

Errorless discrimination[edit]
Programmed instruction resulted from early efforts to implement Skinner's basic research findings on
learning at Harvard that led to "errorless discrimination"
[4]
techniques being
developed.
[5]
Programmed instruction had some early success in aphasia rehabilitation.
[6]

Programmed instruction today[edit]
While not popular,
[6]
programmed instruction continues to be used today. Recently, the application of
programmed instruction principles was reapplied to training in computer programs,
[7][8][9][10]
after
some popularity in a series of books on functional programming,
[11][12][13][14][15]
and combined
with Benjamin Bloom's taxonomy to teach college students.
[16]
Some have argued that there is a
resurgence of research on programmed instruction due to use of computers and the Internet.
[17]

Notes[edit]
1. Jump up^