Word: teachers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Various officials in the School of Education yesterday seemed to favor the use of machines as a classroom supplement, but not as a substitute for the teacher. The question was raised by an article printed yesterday on the theory of B.F. Skinner, professor of Psychology...
...operate under the contention that the simple mechanical methods of stimulus and response--successful in the study and control of lower organisms--may also be applied successfully to men. The teaching machines, in their manner of operation and in their intent to remove some of the human contact between teacher and student, definitely lie in the Cambridge Street camp...
...make heat impossible for the answer. It is probably harder to compose such a program than it is to cover the same material in a textbook passage. The machine material must be clear and self-contained, because the machine is the only source, and cannot clarify itself as a teacher...
Actually, of course, it is wrong to say that the machine does any teaching. It just presents the material in a logical way, conveys knowledge from the composer of the program to the student. Of course it is infinitely more efficient than a real teacher, since the number of students to whom it can convey this information is virtually limitless...
...real asset of teaching machines, of course, and very likely the reason so much money is being spent now on their research and development, is the terrific dearth of teachers in this country. If teaching machines could be run off assembly lines as just another gadget and someday became as common as television sets, the few teachers there are could be liberated from the more ponderous tasks of mechanical instruction they now have to perform, and the dilemma of the teacher shortage could be substantially diminished, if not wiped out entirely...