Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

Appendix III

Excerpts from Programmed Learning

Programmed Learning: Evolving Principles and Industrial Applications , Jerome P. Lysaught, Ed. (Foundation for Research on Human Behavior: Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1961). Business organizations, as well as educational institutions, have an increasing demand for training, improved skills and more effective teaching methods. In October 1960, businessmen and social scientists met together to discuss programmed learning, some of its current applications in business, and the outlook for the future. This is the report of their meeting. About This Report …The increased demand for training, improved skills and better education in industry has stimulated some business organizations to explore the possibilities of programmed learning with the aid of devices which include automated teaching machines. The earliest teaching machines, developed several decades ago by S.J. Pressey who was the first psychologist to see “the coming industrial revolution in education” were designed for self-scoring, not for programmed instruction in the present sense. The appropriate current emphasis, reflected in the seminar, is on the concepts and principles of programmed learning, and on the translation of learning theory into the programming of instruction or teaching. Mechanical devices used should thus reflect the desired methods of teaching and learning, not determine them…. In planning the seminar held in October, 1960, Eastman Kodak and IBM representatives agreed to present and develop and use programmed instruction in their training programs. They shared the Foundation’s conviction that a major emphasis on programming principles, learning theory and research, rather than on teaching machines themselves, would provide the most practical guidelines to other companies and to educational institutions interested in exploring programmed learning to increase the effectiveness of their training and education. Consequently, in addition to the two industry experiences, a large portion of the seminar was devoted to theory, principles, and the results of experimental studies in universities. The three social scientists from academic institutions who led these discussions at the

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