An extract from Educating the Digital Native, which was published in The Lecturer’s Guide to Further Education (2007).
In this chapter I explore arguments for and against the use of digital technologies within education, looking in particular at the theories of B. F. Skinner, Mark Prensky and Neil Postman.
I post below an extract from the chapter in which I explore B. F. Skinner’s Teaching Machines (detailed above).
It strikes me that whilst much of the technology we use within education has developed remarkably since 2007, the assumptions within the debate about them have not.
“The theorists whose ideas will be examined in this section, illustrate the extensive range of such thinking. They include writers who are alternatively positive and negative about the impact of ICT, as well as those that argue for both voluntarist and determinist perspectives. A contrast can also be drawn between those that foreground the impact of ICT on teaching, and those that are more concerned with the opportunities it provides for learning.
Teachers as programmers
The first theorist to be considered is B. F. Skinner. Skinner is known more broadly for his contribution to a psychological school of thought called behaviourism, so called for its emphasis on the external and measurable behaviour of the subjects it studied. Skinner’s theory of education and training, which sought to uncover the scientific principles by which these services might be delivered more efficiently has been, and remains both influential and controversial, primarily for its alleged objectification of humanity.
Skinner’s work on instruction technology is not discussed so frequently, which is surprising given its prescience. At the time of writing the Teaching Machines Skinner was a professor of psychology at America’s Harvard University (Skinner, 1958) and automated computation was, for the most part, a mechanical, rather than electronic, exercise. Yet he anticipated much of the contemporary debate.
His essay begins by drawing our attention to the growing social demand for education, a demand that cannot be met by ‘building more schools and training more teachers’. Instead of allocating more resources, Skinner suggests that America should develop its delivery and assessment technologies. Existing mediums, such as film, could replace teachers in terms of standardized lectures, he argues, but they do not interact with students, both in terms of the matching of content to student need, or the assessment of their understanding. The solution, he argues, is to develop the teaching machines that were first invented in the 1920s.
A variety of teaching machines are then discussed by Skinner. These required that students read and respond to a series of carefully ordered and progressively more challenging frames of information. Incorrect answers trigger remedial frames, while correct responses allow students to progress. Feedback is immediate and respondents can set the pace of progression. Anticipating his critics, particularly those within the humanities, Skinner then goes on to provide illustrations of these technologies working across arts, languages, science and social science disciplines. He also describes early examples of what would now be called multimedia technologies, in which auditory, as well as visual and verbal stimuli, were a feature.
Finally, Skinner addresses himself to the question on the mind of the increasingly anxious teacher-reader: will I become redundant? The development of teaching machines does not signal the demise of their fleshy counterparts, argues Skinner, but their coronation. Teaching machines, like assembly lines, will force a new division of labour. Within this, teachers will concentrate on complex and high value-added activities, such as programming the machines, and analysing the information generated, ‘In assigning certain mechanizable functions to machines, the teacher emerges in his [sic] proper role as an indispensable human being. He may teach more students than heretofore’ and in return ‘for his greater productivity he can ask society to improve his economic position’ (Skinner 1958: 8).
It is clear that Skinner believed that technology would amplify and extend the agency of practitioners. His contribution is important in that it provides an early example of technology being positioned as a means of solving an educational problem, in this case the growing demand for resources required to expand provision. It also raises an issue that will continue to be a feature of instructional technology discourse, which is the question of productivity.
In principle, the aspiration to raise levels of productivity is a healthy one, as nobody gains from the squandering of human resources. If pedagogy could be reliably automated in part, or in whole, this would significantly lighten the associated costs. This, in turn, would enable provision to be extended, diversified or deepened.
It is notable, however, that Skinner’s prediction regarding the potential gains of applying technology to education is nearly half a century old. In the first decade of the twenty-first century we are still waiting for examples of teaching and training being effectively automated on the mass scale he envisioned. Indeed, as we shall see in the third section of this chapter, the empirical evidence of ICT-based strategies raising productivity is mixed, in spite of the considerable sums of public money and practitioner time expended.
There are many possible explanations for this delay. To be fair, instructional technology was in its infancy when Skinner was writing. In the intervening years computers have developed significantly, and it is possible that the rate of technical development, coupled with the institutional inertia that characterizes the education and training sectors, has delayed the predicted productivity gains.
Alternatively, it could be that Skinner overlooked, or discounted, the important interpersonal dynamics of educational and training. Those that work within FE will recognize that students in fact require significant levels of personal contact and feedback. Interaction with another more knowledgeable human often provides them with both the inspiration and discipline they need to engage with their studies. Lecturers, for better and for worse, are usually the principle mediums of instruction. For this reason it may be that the claim that ICT can systematically facilitate autonomous, resource-light, learning is mistaken. Time will ultimately tell. In the interim, however, it seems likely that overall staff–student ratios will remain constant.
Contemporary thinking in relation to ICT would seem to be moving in this direction. In the recent period few sensible advocates of ICT suggest that lecturer numbers are going to be significantly reduced by machines. Rather the discussion is of ‘blended provision’, which combines both ICT and real, not virtual, lecturers. Sadly, too many learning technologists and policy wonks continue to promote ICT on the false premise that it can provide an immediate solution to the resource problems of FE managers. In doing so, they do a disservice to the technologies they advocate. ICT, as the American critic Clifford Stoll has noted, is too often sold as if it were ‘Silicone Snake Oil’. One immediate consequence of this is that lecturers often dismiss the technology on the mistaken grounds on which it is promoted.”
You purchase the full publication here.
B.F. Skinner’s essay Teaching Machines can be found here.
Image: Teaching Machine Designed by B. F. Skinner posted by Silly Rabbit on Wikicommons