| Abstract: For about a ten year period from the mid 1950s to the mid 1960s great excitement and controversy was ignited by B. F. Skinner's invention of the Teaching Machine. Whereas others had used machine quizzing and scoring devices to assess student performance, Skinner and his colleagues were the first to use a machine to systematically arrange contingencies of reinforcement for the purpose of teaching, i.e. programed instruction. Although the excitement and controversy over teaching machines and programed instruction has abated, Skinner's vision lives on today. This panel will examine the current state of Skinner's vision and present an argument that teaching machines and programed instruction are needed now even more than in the 1950's. But just as was true then, the machine alone, in this case, today's computer, does not a quality program make. Without the science of behavior that Skinner fathered, programs are at best electronic page-turners, at a worst a gross waste of time. The panelists will also discuss the nuances of the analysis of behavior that must go into the design and development of a validated instructional program and its relationship to the technology around which it is built. |