A Completion Item Teaching Machine for Routine Classroom Use
The current interest in teaching machines shows that psychology is recognizing its responsibility for applying learning theory to the practical problems of education. Every classroom teacher should by now have some awareness of the meaning of "reinforcement" and "feedback." A number of ingenious but rather costly machines are becoming available for laboratory or special remedial purposes, but too little attention has been given to simple equipment and procedures suitable for regular classroom use. The punchboard makes possible inexpensive self-teaching use of the multiple choice item, and the model answer method has been shown to serve equally well for the essay test (Willey, 1958). Tests of these types can thus be scored easily item by item with consequent immediate knowledge of success or error. The writer has recently developed a device for similar scoring of completion items which he calls a teaching machine only for the reason that this has become the accepted general term for all such mechanical aids to self-instruction. (A new comprehensive term is needed.) The materials for this device are ( 1) a legal size manila mailing envelope, (2) a panel of 1/8" masonite slightly smaller than the envelope with one end rounded, so a sheet of paper will move around it, (3) a short length of flexible cord about l/s" in diameter, and (4) a strip of acetate about 9 X 1% in. A mimeographed question and answer sheet is prepared in the following form: