Effects of Technology

The Keller Plan (Reflection)

As I was reading the article on using The Keller Plan the first thing that struck me was how long ago F.S. Keller actually implemented his new way of teaching; early 1960’s. I have to admit that I was not aware of this. As I continued to read about The Keller Plan I felt like I was reading about a teaching strategy implemented in recent years. I am a firm believer in the effectiveness of the key elements of the system: “Clear educational objectives, small learning modules with associated achievement tests and immediate feedback, student self-pacing, positive reinforcement, and student emphasis on doing rather than listening.” (Davis and Ragsdell p. 2) I learn better in this type of instructional environment and I like to instruct students in this type of learning environment, although I do not get the opportunity to utilize it very often. I have a problem trying to spread my assistance across the classroom when each student is working on a different part of the lesson. As the article mentioned, assistants were recommended and the only assistants I have are the students in the class. I do allow students to assist other students if they are ahead in the lesson. Without some sort of software assistance, I also have difficulty preparing enough assessment material and getting it evaluated and returned to the students to allow students to test and retest until they master the material so they can move on. I would love to have access to software where I could streamline my curriculum into a self-paced course. I definitely think that test scores would go up.

Karen Hughes

Posted at 01:31PM Jan 18, 2009 by Karen Hughes in General  |  Comments[0]