THE GROUP PROGRAM.

One w a y of over comin g the teacher resistance to P.L. is possibl y the employment of group programs. It is I suppose, a compromise b etwe en P.L. and class teachi ng and might meet the need of some teachers who feel that they have to do at least a proportion of class teac hing in every lesson. It might s atisfy those who feel that they are not doing their duty unless they themselve s are the lesson medium.

However, the group programs, like any other compromise, lose s om e t h i n g because they are a compromise. The biggest loss is that of self-pacing, though some advocates say that group p acin g has advantages. For slow- lea rning pupils in classes, the probabli ty is that individpaHj. l e a r n i n g differences are generally too wide for the m to benefit a great deal by this group pacing.

There are various techniques for im p a r t i n g group programs, but like all programm ed learning, they are bas icall y the same in that they

are founded on the stimulus-re spons e-con firm at io n pattern. The pr es e n t a t i o n can vary between the blackboard or chart and the most so phisticated audio or visual aids. The response mode and confirmatory methods can l ikewise be simple or complicated.

Doc tors Stenhouse and W o m e r s l e y (8A) ins talle d an electrical sys t e m w i t h 128 student stations linked to a lecturer's console. E a c h student had a box w i t h four switches and a green and red light. The student res ponde d to the multi-choice question by pr e s s i n g one of the concealed switches and at once kne w if his answer w as correct or not ac c o r d i n g to w h ethe r the light v;as green or red. To what extent the lectures were otherwise programmed was not mentioned.

In the S tocksbridge College of Fur t h e r Education, Sheffield, a fairly soph isticated cla ssroo m group prog ra m m i n g set-up was created. Like the above sy s t e m it included a number of Student stations w i t h switches and lights and a l e c t u r e r fs console. In addition there wa s an ingenious perfo rated belt m e c h a n i s m w hich co-ordinated the taped p r o g r a m w i t h either a cinematograph or strip-film projector. The console not onl y showed the lecturer or operator the student respons es as they made t h e m but recorded the m as well. W h e n the lecturer wi s h e d to use f i l m w h i c h was not d esigned as part of a p r o g r a m he could insert multi -c h o i c e questions by means of an overhead projector. This, howeber, u s u a l l y

needed an assistant to operate the overhead projector.

The whole thing was cumbersome and subject to frequent breakdown due to the classroom h avin g to be used for other purpose s and the consequent damage to the electrical wiring. The la b o u r of pre parin g a pro g r a m £and settin g it up was such that the s y s t e m was seldom u s e d except to demonstrate its inge nuity to visitors. However, there are simple ways to employ common audio visua l aids such as the cine-projector, tape recorder and strip and slide projectors.

K e r s h

(Sb)

The ulti mate in automated classrooms is pr o b a b l y "Class." This s y st em is capable of i m p a rt ing both indi vidua l programmed lessons or group-paced lessons. K e r s h says: "Briefly, Class is an autom ated classroo m u s i n g a P h ilc o S-2000 computer as a central control mechanism. Class permits i n s tru ction through a variety of different media,

inc ludin g motion pictures and television. E a c h student re ceiv es an ind ividualised sequence of in struc tion al materials through a m a n u a l l y operated fil m viewer co ntaining 2000 frames of i n s t r u ctio nal material. A response device linked to the computer, tells the student w h i c h frame to turn to, enables the student to respon d to questions and pr esent s knowledge of results. The computer keeps t r a c k of all studen ts and makes the records available to the teacher."

K e r s h also describes some commerciaDJLy available ( i n America,) automated classrooms similar in construction, i f more refined; to that w h i c h was erected at Stocksbridge.

The following experiment w as carried out w i t h a group of teachers studyin g P.L. at the Ed ucat i o n a l D e ve lopme nt S u mmer School in London, 1970. The subjects were eight teachers w i t h w i d e l y

97

different backgrounds. The p rog ram was. titled "Five O a k Tre es Defined by Leaf and Fruit." It consisted of 1 5 multichoice frames. E a c h frame consisted of a tape r e c o r d i n g supported by a picture

projected by a slide-projector and followed by a taped r esponse demand. ( See App. 13 ) The student responde d by turning a cube toward the lecturer on which a bold letter A,B, C or D, wa s printed. W i t h this limited subject and these very favourable conditions the technique was very effective.

c

A form of combined c lassr oom less on and p rog ram w h i c h A

ensured an attentive class was used i n the Mil t o n School to supplement nature studies. Short 12 - 20 frame linear programs were created and duplicated. The teacher first gave a very short less on w h i c h confirmed as closely as possible to the p r o g r a m and in the course of w h i c h illustrat ions similar to those used in the p r o g r a m were used. The teacher then pr esented the children w i t h the programs to w r r k at individually. This is u n d o u b t e d l y a simple and effective t e a c h i n g technique w h i c h has ma n y possibilities, (see App, )

The f ollow ing study wa s aimed to compare a c om mon

teaching technique - the use of flash cards to teach word r e c o g n i t i o n - and a group program presented in a similar manner. The N u l l hypothes is b e ing that there would be no significant difference (3% or below)

in the two results.

Two groups, each of twelve w o r d s were selected fro m the fLanguag e Master List of Common W o r d s ’(79)* Tw e n t y - f o u r of the most difficult and those most u n l i k e l y to be a l r e a d y . k n o w n to the subjects were chosen. ’A' group (presented on flash cards) perhaps, perfect, person, perfume

programme, protect, propellor, protest, discover, disturb, disappear, disgust.

*B' group (presented in the form of a group program) because, before, begin, behind,

remember, return, refuse, reply,

impatient, impossible, improve, important.

Four trials were given w i t h eac h w o r d group,

week s but the fourth after a lapse of twenty-eight days d u r i n g w h i c h time the school was closed. The subjects were then tested individually.

The pr e-trial scores were for p ractical purposes negative i n both groups. The subjects were fourteen children who were all present at the first' trial - details of their age, IQ, R A and post-test scores are shown in App. ^

The flash-card trials followed the pa ttern as follows (1) The card was shown to the group who were invited to read or guess the word.

(2) T h e y were told the word.

(3) The wo rd was explained and put in a context, verbally^ (*f) The children were again asked to read it aloud.

N o . (3) wa s sometimes extended by a short verbal dramatisa tion of the wor d by the teacher; i.e. w i t h words such as 1 d i s g u s t1 or ’protest* or made personal to the children w i t h words like ’p e r f u m e. 1

A trial would last about fifteen minutes.

The Group P r o g r a m trials t o o k approxi matel y the same time and the process was as follows

The children, sitting in a semi-circle, were each provided w i t h an adaption of the ’Cosford C u b e ’ (8o). This is a small cube of wood, each side painted a different colour. The student holds it i n his

cupped hands concealing the side he exposes to the teacher • M u l t i - c h o i c e q uest i o n are keyed to the colours. . Our cubes were not coloured but numbered,

on four sides only, 1, 2, 3s ^ (see app. 13

The p r o g r a m had each frame printed on a separate sheet i n a script similar to that of the f l ash cards; it was pres ented one frame at a time. The cue stimulus was a sentence w i t h a b l a n k space into w h i c h the children had to v isu ally place one of the four

words w h i c h were pla ced i m m e d i a t e l y u n d e r n e a t h and i t e m i s e d 1 2 3 °r k. The teacher the n recited the text poi ntedl y omitting the requir ed response

word. W i t h o u t calling out the subjects had to turn the correct side of their cube toward the teacher. The teacher was at once able to see what i t e m each pupil had chosen. If there were more than two or three errors, the teacher would say someth ing like "Look more c los ely, ” then he w o u ld confirm the correct response and make the pupils repeat it before

turning to the next frame.

was such that it could easily be read by all the subjects and so

constructed, within these limitations, that only the correct word

made sense. As only the words in the group were used as choice

alternatives, each :frame reduced the number of possible answers though

I doubt if any children consciously exploited this.

The study, as I expected, did not produce a result

significant enough to upset the null hypothesis, though the programming

procedure seemed to be somewhat more effective than the flash cards.

The comparative mea n gains bei ng 8.1 words for the pro g r a m group of words and 6.7 for the flash card present ed group.

An interesting feature of this study was that it is possible

in teaching periods totalling two hours in all, to add to the

reading knowledge of these slow learning children, an average of

l*f new and difficult words. The study was designed to compare the

effectiveness of two teaching techniques, one called programmed

learning because it was based on behavioural theories and a commonly used :

technique of the flash card.

Considering the matter in retrospect, it could be said

that both tests were based on behavioural theories and the study

might be considered a comparison of response modes. Using the

terminology of Storulow (8.6) the programmed test employed a

’prompting sequence and the method,' of presenting the flash cards,

a ’confirmation sequence.

The study to follow this will consider response modes

A p p e n d ix 1 2 . GROUP PROGRAM STUDY

Score; W i l c o x o n Test

No Age I .Q. R.A. P P.O. Diff D^f £ T a l l y +R ank *-R ank

1 11 44 _{6.3 7} 2 _*5 2 12,6 _.59 7.7 1.1 12 -1 3 12,6 66 6.4 2 4 -2 4 _{12,3 49} 6,4 1 4 _-3 3 11.2 34 5.8 2 0 • +2 1 ++ — 2! 3 . 3 6 12.3 62 7.5 12 12 0 2 ++- 6 12 5 7 11.11 64 _7.5 10 9 + 1 3 ++** 9 18 9 8 11.2 80 7.8 11 8 +3 3 + 11 _{11 0} 9 10.11 ₅₉ 6.8 00 9 -1. 10 _13.1 66 6.5 A 3 + 1 11 11.4 7° 7.8 10 10 0 12 12.0 60 7.4 6 4 +2 13 12.11 81 7.6 12 12 0 14- 14.9 72 7.5 OO 3 +3 Sm aller R a n k Total (-) 19 E l imin a t i n g 6,10 and 13 N = 11.

P r o m the fE f Tab le for W i l c oxo n's Signed R a n k Test (6 9) YJhen N = 11 and R = 19 P is less than 10% Therefore the D i f f e r e n c e is not significant.

APPENDIX 1;.