Teaching Machines Ahead of Methods
Chemical & Engineering News · 1961
At the University of Illinois this fall, talented high school students are meeting an automated tutor for the first time. Their instructor, Plato II, is built around a digital computer. It is teaching them the basic mathematical concepts needed for a course in computer programing. As the computer presents new information and problems to the students, they respond by feeding answers to the system via keysets. They may digest the new math at their own pace, calling on Plato for help or review until they reach correct solutions to the problems. Another teaching experiment is just getting under way at Albion (Mich.) College. There, the school's chemists and psychologists are developing the logic needed to program a general chemistry course. They expect the full writing job to take at least two years. The new course, divided into units—acids and bases, equilibrium, gas laws, etc.—will be reproduced in booklet form. Instruction and question will be ...