Audrey Watters

The longer I teach, the more I notice that the "hot new trends" in pedagogy are simply repackaged versions of the last "hot new trend" that failed to revolutionize the field. MOOCs. Flipped classrooms. Guided pathways. And while the start of the pandemic made me eager to reconceptualize the classroom itself, two years in I realize that the most effective classroom, as far as just about all student outcomes are concerned, is the in-person classroom with me, the professor, standing in the front of the class: teaching them, interacting with them, working with them.

So I was looking forward to reading this book, hoping that it would start out with the early 20th century teaching machines and segue into a discussion of how those same ideologies form the basis for a lot of so-called modern ideas. I was also hoping for a more pedagogical, rather than technological or sociological, critique of the teaching machines. (Although I would suspect that there is no compelling data on the topic, if any data exists at all.) How can a teaching machine as envisioned by Pressey or Skinner teach students to apply knowledge? How can it accomplish anything other than rote instruction? And are "modern" versions of teaching technology any more effective?

I suppose the most amusing aspect of the book was how teaching machines were intended to "reduce the drugery and paperwork" of the teacher. That narrative hasn't changed in 100 years. I still receive solicitations from textbook publishers and other companies for me to use their automatic grading software, their automated learning platforms, their online homework systems. Some of them are quite useful, but none of them actually reduce my need to be an active part of my student's educational lives. None of them actually reduce the amount of time I spend grading and giving feedback.

I didn't dislike this book, but was disappointed that it focused almost entirely on Skinner and pretty much dropped off after the 1960s. It almost seemed like a 200-page historical rebuttal to the story about Sal Khan given in the introduction, and nothing qualitatively more substantial than that.… (lisätietoja)