Programmed instruction

This post goes to several lists whose members should be concerned if they
aren't already.   By now, you'll have read an "outsider's" view on the
failure of programmed learning.

Since Jonathan Cooke opened this thread on 11/02, there have been at least
_four other_  sets of "explanations" for the failure of programmed
instruction to be developed and then used as widely and successfully as it
should be.

Each of these four (including my own) reeks of cover-your-ass, of
parochialism, of it's the other guy's failure, and so on.  As the
"outsider's" comment shows, none of us has spelled out so well that the
problem is our failure to question Skinner's teachings.  The more we stuck
to Skinner, the worse the programs worked.  It's us--it's the cultish
practices and languages of the beh. an. community.

We're great at explaining ourselves to ourselves and to neglecting that
there are many others with whom we should converse, to whom we may
contribute, from whom we might learn, and with whom we may
accommodate.  Behavior analysis must _not_ become a cult.

W.S.V.
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    William S. Verplanck          [email protected]
  An award-winning site: http://web.utk.edu/~wverplan/
    http://web.utk.edu/~wverplan/kantor/kantor.html
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