Classroom for Automated Instruction

an educational compartment equipped with a complex of technical facilities which mechanize and automate the process of learning with the aim of increasing the effectiveness of the work of the instructor and students and of reducing the learning time. Ten to 40 people may study simultaneously in these classrooms. The equipment of the classroom for automated instruction is basically used for checking the students’ knowledge, as well as for the mechanization and automation of various types of explanations and for the accumulation of information concerning the progress of studies.

The “MEI Examiner” (K-54), an assembly of 12(24) informational control units connected by a central instructor’s panel, can serve as an example of automated instruction equipment intended for the automation of checks on the students’ knowledge and the process of clarification of errors committed by them in their responses. The instructor, conducting the lesson from the central control panel, sets up the program of knowledge testing and receives the results of the examination on his panel.

The automated classroom for monitored learning with ramified proportioning is equipped with facilities for individual learning and testing, as well as a storage unit for the results of individual testing. The basic educational material to be learned is studied by each student in the form of a learning program or programmed textbook. The mastery of each dose of learning material is monitored by multiple-choice tests. Depending on the results of his responses to the series of test questions, the student is instructed concerning the next step in his course of study. Passage to the next learning dose takes place when the entire set of test questions is answered correctly. If 60–80 percent of the answers are correct, that part of the material which must be repeated is indicated; if fewer than 40 percent of the answers are correct, all the material must be repeated. The delivery of supplementary or explanatory materials (written or shown on the “informer-consultant”) or help from the teacher is provided for when a student commits the same error repeatedly. The basic equipment consists of the central instructor’s panel and up to 30 individual student panels. On the student’s panel are five pairs of switches for the input of responses to test questions and a display unit which indicates the correct responses and gives instructions concerning the subsequent course of study. The central panel indicates the correct and incorrect answers of all the students, signals an “instructor call” with a light, and permits supervision of the work of individual student panels of the classroom for automated instruction. Auxiliary equipment consists of a controllable tape recorder and slide projector which any student may use with the help of a special panel.

The complex of automated instruction equipment, which is based on a digital computer (such as the “Dnepr”), can serve simultaneously and independently up to ten classes of 25 working locations each. Each student working location is equipped with an information input panel and an output unit. On the input panel the student requests his learning assignment and sends his answers to test questions to the digital computer. The address (number) of an index card with informational material which the student must look over is recorded on the digital indicators of the output unit. Controllable slide projectors actuated by digital computer signals, which can demonstrate to the student various slides or movie-film frames, are tied into the individual output units. By means of a special output unit in the form of a signal panel, the instructor obtains information on the quantity of material which has been gone over by each student.