Instructional Materials in Physics and Astronomy
Date of this Version
1975
Abstract
Buterbaugh and Fuller discuss the Personalized System of Instruction--what it is, how it can (or cannot) be evaluated, and some problems which may be encountered with its use. If the lecture-taught course has instructors meeting the students as adversaries, continually answering redundant questions, haggling over half-credit for half-correct answers, and generally finding most students being inhibited by the lock-step timing of a lecture course, then PSI is an alternative. Extensive acceptance and employment of this alternative mode of instruction should cause instructional developers to take another look at the essential features of the system. PSI has been widely employed by instructional developers in the physics field. Other disciplines where PSI has been adapted and classroom tested include art, history, astronomy, anthropology, medicine, nurses training, geology, religion, and philosophy. PSI (also known as the Keller Plan) is self-paced, mastery-oriented, student-tutored for junior college or university instruction, with classes of all sizes.
Comments
Published in Audiovisual Instruction 20:3 (March 1975), pp. 62-65.