Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

"The danger is that emotion and hysteria will result in our letting machines run us instead of our running the machines" teaching devices will inevitably include a generous share of printed materials and that the role of the textbook, how^ever much it may be modified, will continue to be second in importance only to the most important role of ail-that of the live teacher on the job. In any proposed learning systems the two media which are pretty sure to be recommended along with textbooks and other printed materials of instruction are teaching machines, or devices for programmed learning, and school television. Both have many ardent advocates. How are we going to judge them and what are the roles that they are likely to assume in the total learning process? Is programmed learning a good or a bad thing educationally? I am sure that no honest and objective judge could possibly call it either all good or all bad, and he would have to point out that the case for programming inevitably rests on the ingenuity and resourcefulness of programmers. Programming is in its infancv. We don't yet know just what we can do with it. At present it seems to be fairly limited and incapable of affording students more than one rather rigid and somewhat sterile form of learning experience. But there seems to be plenty of evidence that programmed teaching is effective. We know that boys and girls learn when they take a good program. Until we have further information based on reliable research, we have a good deal of uncertainty as to the nature of their learning. The programs that have thus far been produced seem to be better suited to the transmission of facts and principles than to the stimulation of creative learning or learning by discovery, insight, intuition, and mature reasoning. I personally doubt that we shall ever be able to look to programmed instruction for this type of learning, but one cannot safely make predictions about a device or technique which is relatively so young and untried. The programmers may surprise us. The Future of Television There seems to be much less uncertainty about television as a medium of instruction and yet its future is by no means assured. If we permit and encourage indiscriminate and faulty use of the medium for teaching purposes, its future is threatened. The road of American education is littered with discarded enthusiasms. When we are disappointed with the results we get from a highly touted innovation, we turn against it quickly and usually with a vehemence and thoroughness that is in direct proportion to the enthusiasm with which it was introduced. The baby goes out with the bath. This could happen to the school use of television. We are using it now with no clear recognition of its limitations nor of the unique teaching opportunities it affords. We have certainly not sufficiently demonstrated the precise and significant role of television in the spectrum of teaching implements. What is television teaching today? For the most part it is limited to the talking that a teacher does when she is addressing her entire class. She may use a blackboard to illustrate points and a few still visuals and other equipment. It is seldom that she takes advantage of the fact that the medium permits her to show movement, action, and life of almost any sort, anywhere. Through pictures in motion it can let the student see what thousands of words could not describe for him. The news commentators do a better job than the usual television teacher in taking advantage of this unique feature of the medium. They are prepared to introduce appropriate video tapes or film into every program. They capitalize on the fact that television can let the audience see the news as well as hear it. A newscast without this feature has nothing to offer (except speed) that is not more effectively offered by the printed report in the newspaper. If you doubt this, consider again the advantages of written or printed, as contrasted vdth oral, communication. I think the same point can be made with respect to the talking the television teacher does. If there were a book available in which her audience could read what she has to say, they would usually be better off to do the reading and then to talk it over afterwards v*ath a hve teacher to guide and participate in the discussion. The lecture method is upon us and it is apparently getting great encouragement from television. The television teacher seems to be under compulsion to talk and to keep right on talking until the hour, or the half hour, or the twenty minutes is up. Television can bring the world in movement to the classroom. There is almost nothing that cannot be effectively demonstrated on the television screen. It can introduce personalities from almost anywhere to the classroom audience. It offers infinite resources for motivation. It can provide great impetus to the Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — December, 1962 713