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Course Prerequisites
Access to the web. No previous computer programming or educational/training experience is required. If you are connected to the internet and reading this sentence on your computer screen right now, you are ready to experience the course.
Overview of the Course
This course develops skills in Behavior Analysis (behavioral learning theory) and Instructional Design. The overall objective of this course is for students to learn the terminology, procedures, and techniques for creating effective Programmed Instruction tutorials and training programs.
This course "practices what it preaches." Meaning, students learn to create instructional tutorials by experiencing the course's instructional tutorials. Students work through on-line tutorials that teach the principles, techniques, and skills necessary for creating tutorials. The tutorials are very effective at teaching their content. They are also excellent models for the tutorials that students will eventually create on their own.
General Structure of the Course
Students work through 4-6 on-line tutorials and experience an on-line quiz covering the information in those tutorials. By working through the on-line tutorials, students will learn the terminology of Programmed Instruction (PI), procedures for developing student verbal behavior, procedures for delineating, organizing, and sequencing instructional material, preparation techniques for frame construction, effective characteristics of tutorials, and specific steps for creating interactive tutorials and training programs. (Specific instructional objectives are stated at the beginning of each tutorial.)
On-Line Tutorials
The PI Course contains four major sets of on-line tutorials and should be worked through in this exact sequence:
- About Programmed Instruction (API) Tutorials. API tutorials teach about the basic concepts and techniques of Programmed Instruction (PI). By working through these 19 tutorials, students will learn the basic terminology of PI, purposes and goals of PI, beginning procedures and techniques for frame construction, and initial skills for creating interactive computer tutorials and tests.
- Preparing Automated Instruction (PAI) Tutorials. PAI tutorials teach about advanced concepts and techniques of Programmed Instruction (PI) tutorials. By working through these 17 tutorials, users will learn procedures for developing student verbal behavior, preparation techniques for frame construction, effective characteristics of PI tutorials, and authoring skills for creating interactive computer tutorials and tests.
- RULEG Frame Type (RULEG) Tutorials. These 4 tutorials teach about internal frame organization, the positioning of rules and examples, and few standard frame types that programmers can use in their programs.
- Effective Characteristics of Instructional Programs Tutorials. These 10 tutorials teach research-supported effective characteristics and features of educational software, particularly those that relate to computer-based tutorial instruction.
All of the tutorials are highly interactive sequences of frame-by-frame Programmed Instruction. Each tutorial consists of about 30-50 frames. Each frame requires the student to actively respond by filling in a blank on the screen or answering a question. A summary score of the percentage of correct responses is continually displayed. Tutorial mastery is defined as earning a tutorial percent correct score of at least 90%. If a 90% is not achieved, the student is recommended to review the tutorial again.
The tutorials employ behavioral principles of learning (shaping, fading, priming, prompting, reiteration, active responding, feedback, etc.). The tutorials are elegantly simply in appearance, do not use distracting "eye candy" (fancy graphics or audio), and are very effective at accomplishing their objectives. They have been developed, pilot-tested, administered, and revised with college students over the past 10 years.
Specific List of Topics Taught Within Each Tutorial
About Programmed Instruction (API) Tutorials
1. Frames, Teaching Technology, Programmed Instruction, Initial/Terminal Behavior - 41 Frames
2. Observable Behavior, Probability, Reinforcement, Emit - 57 Frames
3. Discriminative Stimulus, SD, S^, Occasion, Discrimination - 39 Frames
4. Prompts, Supplementary Stimulation, Fading - 39 Frames
5. Formal and Thematic Prompts, Fading - 42 Frames
6. Control of Observing Behavior, Blanks, Formal Prompts - 33 Frames
7. Discrimination Training, Stimulus Control, Fading - 33 Frames
8. Discrimination Training, Teaching New Concepts, Stimulus Control - 25 frames
9. Defining Concepts as Behavior, Examples, Definitions, Grammatical Contexts - 25 Frames
10. Frequent Reinforcement, 10% Error Rate, Student-Driven Revision - 39 Frames
11. Change Behavior, Graphics, Use Information, Control Observing Behavior - 32 Frames
12. Changes in Behavior, Technology - 30 Frames
13. Teaching Machines, Progress At Own Rate- 36 Frames
14. Educators Create Programs, Multiple Choices, Constructed Responses - 33 Frames
15. Error Distributions, Evaluation, Revision, Effectiveness - 40 Frames
16. Review of Previous Concepts - 41 Frames
17. Word Erasing, Key Responses, Location of Blanks - 39 Frames
18. Progression, Wasteful Frames, Tally Responses, Sequencing, Programmer Is First Student - 30 Frames
19. The Contingency of Reinforcement - 50 Frames
Preparing Automated Instruction (PAI) Tutorials
1. Frame, Learning, Contingency - 40 Frames
2. Contiguous Pairing, Supplemental Stimulation, Fading, Echoic - 30 Frames
3. Echoic, Intraverbal, Fading - 33 Frames
4. Tact, Intraverbal, Echoic, Functional Relations - 28 Frames
5. Frame, Easy At First, Linear Vs. Branching - 32 Frames
6. Priming, Prompting, History of Conditioning - 32 Frames
7. Fading, Programs that Fail, Terminal Objectives - 33 Frames
8. Generalization, Terminal Objectives, Content Expert - 40 Frames
9. Rule, Tact, Example, Discrimination Training, Ordering Rules - 32 Frames
10. RULEG System Part 1 - 38 Frames
11. RULEG System Part 2 - 44 Frames
12. Review of RULEG, Relationships, Review, Revising - 39 Frames
13. Intraverbal Connections, Blanks, Inductive, Deductive - 39 Frames
14. Small Steps, Examples, Rules, Order, Review - 29 Frames
15. Short Frames, Many Examples, Blanks, Graphics - 28 Frames
16. Synonyms, Key Paring, Lecture Frame, Reintroduction of Rules - 44 Frames
17. Immediate Reinforcement, Pretest, Posttest, Limits of PI, Review - 43 Frames
RULEG Tutorials
1. RULEG Tutorial 1 - 38 Frames
2. RULEG Tutorial 2 - 23 Frames
3. RULEG Tutorial 3 - 31 Frames
4. RULEG Tutorial 4 - 30 Frames
Effective Characteristics of Instructional Programs Tutorials
1. Introduction - 57 Frames
2. Instructional Objectives - 51 Frames
3. Learner Prerequisites - 24 Frames
4. Learner Control 55 Frames
5. Motivation - 49 Frames
6. Screen Design - 49 Frames
7. Graphics, Audio, and Animation - 42 Frames
8. Lesson Design - 42 Frames
9. Interaction - 53 Frames
10. Individualized Programs - 46 FramesRecommendations for Working Through Tutorials
Years of experience from administering similar tutorials with undergraduate and graduate college students has revealed the following recommendations:
Work through the tutorials at a time and in a place where you are least likely to be disturbed. The tutorials are highly interactive and require your FULL attention. They continually build upon previous concepts and require understanding of present information to prepare to learn future information. Do not work through the tutorials while working on another project, watching television, attending a meeting, cooking dinner, etc. Failure to provide your FULL attention may result in needless errors, which can lead to frustration.
Work through only 2-4 tutorials at a sitting. Again, the tutorials are highly interactive and require effort to master the concepts. After working through a few tutorials at a single sitting you may become tired and commit needless errors.
Review if less than 90%. As you work through each tutorial and quiz, your percent correct score is continually displayed. Mastery is defined as earning a percent correct score of at least 90%. If a 90% is not achieved on a tutorial or quiz, the student is recommended to review the tutorials and quiz again.
Work at a pace that best fits your needs. Work as fast or as slow as you desire, but maintain a minimum of a 90% score on both your tutorials and quizzes.
Always try to answer on your own without the help of notes. The highly interactive tutorials will teach you a new vocabulary of behavioral terms and concepts. The tutorials will require you to continually use and apply these terms and concepts in subsequent tutorials. Taking notes and using these notes to help you answer tutorial and quiz questions is "cheating." Try to answer the questions on your own. Struggling a bit is good -- you will ultimately learn more this way. Just like an actor learning his/her lines for a movie or play, taking notes and using these notes is a "crutch" that will only hurt the actor later on. When it comes time to the final performance, the actor will not be able to say the lines without the notes. The course provides a manual that includes extensive notes, definitions, and examples. If you do experience a new idea and want to make a note while working through a tutorial, please do so, but do not use these notes to answer subsequent questions. To get the most out of this course, try to always answer on your own without the help of notes.
Review. The tutorials build and build upon each other, reiterating previous concepts while integrating new concepts. The last frames of most tutorials contain review frames for that tutorial. If it has been a few hours or days since you worked through the previous tutorial, we recommend you review the last few frames of the previous tutorial before beginning the next tutorial. (This is why we give you the option of entering the frame number of the tutorial you wish to begin working on).
Do not cram. Work through tutorials in a consistent and orderly fashion. Do not hastily work through tutorials or try to "cram" in a small period of time, like during the weekend. If you cram, you will need to review more and more, and your subsequent tutorials will not be as effective.
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