Individualized Instruction-Secondary Schools

A. J. STODDARD, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS,

BRONXVILLE, N. Y.

HE Individual Method is based upon the fundamental principle that both time and amount, or

T quality, of learning cannot be made constant

factors. If time is made the constant, then the amount required must vary. The Class Method, so generally in use, makes time the constant and necessarily varies amount and quality, thus giving occasion for the charges of inefficiency in school work that are being made so frequently today. The Individual Method chooses amount or quality as the constant, letting time be variable.

The essential feature of the Individual Method is that of the individual and personal check-up of the progress of each and every student. Even though he may study with a group, or acquire some of his facts, knowledge and skills from class conferences or otherwise, the testing of what he has attained is an individual matter.

The essential feature of the Class Method so generally used in our high schools, is the class recitation. It is quite generally believed that the following criticisms can be made legitimately of the usual class recitation:

First. As a testing device the recitation is inefficient, because of lack of time to test adequately what any individual child has learned. The only thing that really counts is what each child has learned.

Second. As a teaching device the class recitation is inefficient. It is based upon a child's acquiring knowledge through the ear. It is difficult for a child or adult to give constant attention while learning details through the ear. We usually have no assurance that any particular child is "tuned in" to

what is going on in the classroom. Moreover, those who advocate the Individual Method believe that education is in proportion to the amount of effort expended by the individual, and the best assurance that effort is being expended comes from giving the child something to do, not something to hear. Education is a matter of growth from within, and does not come through a "pouring into" process.

Third. The value that is claimed for class discussion is not usually as great as it is thought to be. Very often but a few of the class take part in the discussion, and so, frequently, the discussions are what they were called by a teacher of many years' experience: "Forensic exchange of ignorant opinion!" Whatever value there is in a discussional way in the class method is more than equalled through the group conferences that are held under the Individual Method.

Under the Individual Method every attempt is made to throw more responsibility onto the child and to make him feel that his school work is his and not the teacher's job. A pupil soon finds out that unless he puts forth all the effort of which he is capable he makes very little progress. Unless he does his work day by day he does not succeed. Of course, under the class method he does not succeed unless he works, but he is not brought face to face with the fact in just the same direct way and as constantly as he is under the Individual Method. If the schools of America can bring boys and girls to a realization that each one of them is responsible for his own progress and success, that unless he does his work day by day he will find his next day's tasks "staring him in the face," that no one else will do his work for him, and that he must actually complete one task before he goes on to another, perhaps the biggest lessons of all will have been taught.

The Individual Method makes the progress of each and every child the measure of the efficiency of the work of the classroom. It changes the teaching process from that of pouring education into the child, to that of providing a class

room situation that is favorable to the best learning on the part of the child. Thus the teaching becomes a means to learning by the child, which is the end of all the process. It recognizs the principle that education is dependent not so much on how much the teacher does, but how much the teacher can get the child to do that is worth while. The child gets his own education-it is not given to him-which is more nearly in accordance with life as he will meet it.

According to the Individual Method as it is used in Bronxville, subject-matter is divided into its larger parts, constituting "goals" or "objectives." Assignments are written, covering these goals or objectives. Different parts of the assignment are given one or more "unit" values. A "unit" is the value assigned for doing a part of an assignment that requires approximately sixty minutes of study for completion by the normal pupil. As the student progresses through the assignment he is given "practice tests" which are diagnostic in nature. These tests are corrected by the student according to answer sheets that are so keyed as to indicate what he is to study if he has not fully completed the part of the assignment covered by the test. He may take several different forms of practice tests on a particular part of the assignment before he completes it, although usually he takes a succeeding test over only the part that he missed on the preceding test. If the student should be tempted to cheat in taking one of these tests he soon finds that it would make no difference, because the practice test is given as a teaching device anyhow.

During the time that the student is progressing through the assignment he may have one or more personal conferences with the teacher. This device of a personal conference has proved one of the most valuable in use with the method. The student seeks the conference, and the teacher talks over with him his problems. difficulties and progress. Also, the personal conference offers excellent opportunity to test the student on what he has accomplished. It affords the teacher

an opportunity to give the student an appreciation for the subject that is not possible in the "broadcasting" class method. Religious leaders testify to the fact that the most effective and efficient work is done through personal conferences with individuals.

After the teacher and student are convinced that the student has qualified himself for the final test over the assignment, it is given to him. Just as with the practice tests, the whole or parts of the final test may have to be taken several times. Whenever the final test is passed completely, the student is given the next assignment in the subject. Under the Dalton Plan, a new assignment is not given in one subject until he has completed his monthly assignments in all subjects. In Bronxville, one subject is not made to carry any other subject, and a student will progress in one subject as rapidly as he can if he does not slight his other subjects as far as the proportion of time is concerned.

Class conferences are held at least twice per week in each subject. These conferences are quite different from the usual class recitation. All testing, other than review, is omitted, because it has been done so much more efficiently through the method outlined above. The conference offers opportunity for special reports, special discussions, oral English, and group matters that are of especial interest to the whole group and in which the whole group can participate. Also, it is often economically employed for the purpose of anticipating processes that are to be involved in future assignments. It is during these conferences that purposes may be initiated and projects carried on, giving rise to social values that might be lost during the more individual work on assignments.

According to the plan in operation in Bronxville, the student passes from one laboratory (a room where a pupil studies) to another at will, the only exception to this being when a particular room is in use for a conference or is filled to capacity. A student may stay as long as he wishes in a particular laboratory, with the exception that he must meet

his class conferences when they occur. Of course, the student is guided in all of these matters. Our students have shown surprising progress in their ability to plan efficiently their day's work.

It will be noted that a student is required to complete one assignment before he goes on to another-not just "pass." This causes the progress of many of the students to seem to be quite a little bit slower than under the class method. But, really, it is just the opposite. Because all pupils are reciting together in a class does not signify by any means that all of them are up to that point. The fact that it is necessary for a student to really master his subject-matter as he goes along is one of the greatest significance and importance. It is this requirement that meets with the most objection on the part of many students and their parents. They are so accustomed to the evils of the class method, that they do not see them as such, but rather look upon the attempt to correct these evils as constituting the only evil. Under the class method the pupil sits with the same class day by day, unless he fails at the end of the semester or the year. Only a small percentage of the pupils fail, and then only when conditions are very serious. It is difficult to get parents and pupils to realize that, even though they all stay together and appear to be together, they are widely apart,-far more widely apart than if some of them were allowed to "pass" on to the next grade while others were to fail. Under the Individual Method a large number of the pupils seem to be "behind," and the parents of these pupils are constantly confronted with that fact. It is a source of discomfort to them, and the issue is a daily one instead of once or twice a year. Parents and pupils must be slowly and patiently shown that when a pupil is doing the work of which he is capable, at the rate of which he is capable, there is no cause for complaint on the part of either parent or pupil, and that it is only under such conditions that real progress is being made.

Under the requirement of completion of work a student