Keller Plan

In the 1960's, Fred S. Keller, J. Gilmour Sherman, and others developed a synthesis of educational methods and practices that has often been called the Keller Plan or the Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) . Key aspects of this teaching method include [1

go-at-your-own-pace

so students can proceed according to their abilities, interests, and personal schedules;

unit-perfection requirement which means students must demonstrate mastery of a unit before proceeding to other units; lectures and demonstrations for motivation

instead of for communication of critical information; stress on the written word for teacher-student communication which helps develop comprehension and expression skills; and tutoring/proctoring which allows repeats on exams, enhanced personal-social interaction, and personalized instruction.

Research studies have shown PSI to have a number of advantages over conventional educational methods, and few disadvantages. Students, especially those who would normally perform at the lower or middle levels, learn significantly more, as measured by final examinations and by tests of long-term retention (given years later). They like the classes and tutoring, and develop good habits that carry over to other courses and learning activities. Disadvantages are mostly concerning extra effort being required by the instructor, a higher drop rate in some courses (especially by students who cannot break their habits of procrastination), and extra room requirements.

References

1. Fred S. Keller. Goodbye, teacher ... J. of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 1(1):79-89, Spring 1968.

2. J. Gilmour Sherman and Robert S. Ruskin. The Personalized System of Instruction. Educational Technology Publications, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1978. Vol. 13 in The Instructional Design Library, series ed. Danny G. Langdon.

3

3. J. Gilmour Sherman, Robert S. Ruskin, and George B. Semb, editors. The Personalized System of Instruction: 48 seminal papers. TRI Publications, Lawrence, Kansas, 1982.

Developing Instructional Materials

Designers must make concious efforts to present lessons for learners to fully crasp, making learning effective. Self-paced learning as an instructional format is a means by which learners learn or master certain skills at their individual pace. As learners go through the learning process, they become responsible and learning becomes successful based on the learning objectives and variety of activities. Learners must be catered for individually with different objectives as well as learning activities taking into cognisance each learner's characteristics, preparation, needs as well as interests.

Individual differences must be catered for if effective learning will be achieved and this can be made possible if variety of materials serving the objectives, with more than one instructional sequence is used. Some learners learn fast while others are slow. Some do well with printed materials whereas others perform better with hands on experience. This therefore means that, varied activities reflecting objectives should be prepared, making room for individual learners to make preferred choices.

For example, if an objective states that by the end of the lesson or instruction, learners will be able to say, design a fabric using the marbling technique, the programme may include printed steps to follow, still photographs, a film or videotape and the tools and materials, all focussed on producing a marbled fabric. Some learners may decide to watch the video and move straight to the real work of designing the fabric. Others might prefer reading the steps, study the still photographs before going on to the actual work. Another group might also read the steps, study the photographs, watch the video before proceeding to design the fabric, and there are other learners who will just go straight to designing the fabric using a trial-and-error attempt.

There is a way instructors can check on bad habits such as lack of self-descipline and procrastination with self paced instruction, and that can be acheived through setting deadlines within which some learners can adjust their own study pace so that learning can be beneficial for them.

Views on ID

The course has really been very interesting and very helpful. A lot has been learnt so far from colleagues, the text, case studies etc. Whenever faced with an issue, designers must first of all determine whether there is an instructional problem. This is because certain issues do not need instruction as the measure to address them. If for instance, if there is low output of work due to the breakdown of certain machines or equipments, then there is the need for repairing those machines or equipments and not designing instruction for this purpose.

If there is a Subject Matter Expert (SME) available, the designer need to do a lot of collaborative work with him or her so he or she (designer) can come out with a good material to work with in order to achieve the best results. In the absence of an SME, designers can also read or research into areas they are not conversant with so as to gain the necessary knowledge needed for designing effective instruction.

Designing the Message

Designers must make concious effort in enhancing learners understanding. Designing effective message which basically deals with the presentation of the information (message), that is, how the content or topic is presented. This include using suitable PRE-INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES, to help learners focus on the instruction, using WORDS AND TYPOGRAPHY to signal different aspects of the instruction and then using PICTURES to enhance their (learners) understanding.

Strategies

Effective Instructional strategies enable the learner to relate his existing knowledge of content of an instruction to the new knowledge.Designers can only help learners achieve this if they include these strategies into their lessons. Each objective should have a strategy for treating it. The instructional strategy therefore is a "blueprint" for developing the lesson and as such flexibility in creatively presenting the lesson for learners to be motivated to learn and understand, should as much as possible be employed. Designers should be able to classify your objectives either as a concept, rule, procedure or application, then select the instructional strategy that is appropriate enough to address the objective.

The strategy is like the mothodology you would adopt to carry out the instructional task and as usual the LEARNER who is the focus should be taking into consideration.

Sequencing

The choice of a sequencing scheme depends on the characteristics of learners and the nature of the content. This makes it necessary to determine which sequencing scheme is most appropraite in presenting the information for an instruction. Since learners are the focus, in either the training or learning process, every effort should be made to arouse and maintain their interest. It is not always necessary to follow objectives in a logical manner when sequencing. Objective six (6) may for example, come third in the sequencing. This is to ensure learner motivation.

• After you have developed your objectives as a designer, there is the need to order your content in an appropraite way so that help learners who are your focus for designing the instruction, to achieve those objectives.