My Favorite Method of Teaching 1

Note: I think about the blog entries I plan to write soon, during breaks at work, while driving, etc. I probably considered about 1/2 a dozen different blog entries today, including one on the famous Tamil writer Jayakanthan's watershed short story Agni Pravesam. Ultimately, the present one won out. (I am actually quite tired and would rather kick back and watch the highlights of today's India Australia match which India won. However, I like this topic so much that I decided to delay watching the cricket highlights.) I first thought of this topic today when I saw Saras's blog entry on her Dream School. However, I didn't want to steal her thunder and wanted to wait until a few days have passed after the appearance of her blog entry [she being mine and several other people's most loyal reader ] However, she has posted a comment saying that she would like to read about my dream school. (This is very generous of her.) And this is all the encouragement I needed.

This topic can run to several blog entries. I start with the first -- hence the '1' in the title.
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In the 1950s and 1960s, B.F.Skinner and his colleagues introduced several revolutionary techniques in education. They are my favorite methods of teaching. I am not calling them "my dream methods of teaching" because they have been demonstrated successfully in hundreds (if not thousands) of courses in a variety of subjects and at several different levels and countries.

I will give just one example below. I plan to provide more details in subsequent blog entries. If you cannot wait, please Google "Goodbye", "teacher", "keller". [No, these folks are not suggesting doing away with teachers.

And before I get too far, I feel honor bound to say this: this technique has not caught on, for a variety of reasons.

Almost all teachers have two (conflicting roles):

Teach
Test

And almost all teachers concentrate on the testing role and not on the teaching role. Mouthing the material in a lecture is not teaching. The techniques I write about do the exact opposite -- testing is hugely deemphasized; teaching gets the lion's share of attention.

B.F.Skinner taught sixth grade students in Roanoke, VA using this technique in the 1950s. I think that the subject was algebra. He may have just designed the technique and have somebody else do the actual teaching. (If you Google for "Roanoke" "experiement" "Skinner", you will get some hits. I didn't find a major report but I didn't look hard enough.)

When the students were at work on this technique, Skinner climbed on a table and jumped up and down. Not one student took his eye off from his work. (I know these details from his autobiography.) Can you imagine what would happen if somebody did this in an ordinary school?

I know that I have not given any details, other than saying that teaching is emphasized rather than testing. I will do that I later blog entries. You can ask specific questions and challenge me prior to that.

I will finish with some quotes from an Oct 1961 Popular Mechanics article:

At the conclusion of the Roanoke experiment, only 16% of the students preferred a return to regular instruction.

One Roanoke youngster said: "In regular class you learn something and forget it and have to learn it again. Here, you learn it the first time."

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> That was an outline perhaps of what you would like to ELABORATE in the coming days..

Indeed. The main part is quite technical and I am concerned that I will put people to sleep

> Thanx for bringing me here again

You don't have to thank me for this. Internet interactions are like a huge, extended, and continuing conversation.