Audrey Watters digs up a fascinating definition of 'teaching machines' (and implicitly, I would say, of what constitutes 'teaching'). Quoted from her text:
- First, continuous active student response is required, providing explicit practice and testing of each step of what is to be learned.
- Second, a basis is provided for informing the student with minimal delay whether each response he makes is correct
- Third, the student proceeds on an individual basis at his own rate.
I've seen the research supporting explicit practice and immediate feedback. But the whole concept seems needlessly instructivist. And it raises the question in my mind - is the problem with teaching machines that they are machines, or that they are instructivists?
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