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Click here for some samples of our software
Commercially-available instructional software is not usually designed with the above principles of programmed instruction and precision teaching in mind. Therefore, JRC has had to design and develop its own software. Currently we employ seven software developers, of which two concentrate on the development of academic software using the principles described above.
One of our most innovative pieces of self-instructional software is called the JRC Tutor. This program enables us to present a unit of instruction in any one of a variety of formats, such as a few minutes of a film, a portion of text, an audio passage, a picture, etc. After this instructional unit is presented, the software presents a series of questions which test whether the student has fully comprehended the instruction that was just presented. Questions can have either multiple choice (with one answer or multiple answers begin correct) or a composed answer (answer that is typed and must be letter for letter correct). After each question the student receives immediate feedback for correct and incorrect answers. Incorrectly answered questions are re-presented at the end of that set of questions and also as review questions at a later point in the program. After answering the set of questions associated with the first unit of instruction, the second unit of instruction is presented and the process continues as described above. We have used this software to present some principles of good nutrition and other subjects.
To make our software easily and widely available to its students, JRC provides one computer for each student to use in the classrooms, and additional computers that students can use at their residences. All of our students have indicated that they enjoy this form of teaching much more than the traditional type of instruction in which all students learn the same subject at the same time at a certain pace that the teacher dictates, in which the principal method of instruction is teacher lectures and textbooks, and in which students may have to wait for days after they do a quiz to find out if they answered each item correctly or incorrectly. The students like learning on the computer so much that we are able to use the removal of the computer as an effective punishment for certain problematic behaviors.
*These demos use Windows Media Video files and require the Windows Media Player. Click here to download the player if you do not already have it installed on your computer.
Use of Same Principles with Other Instructional Media
Use of JRC’s Behavior Modification System to Motivate Students to Learn
The point system is set up so that the faster a student learns new skills the more points he/she earns. A highly motivated student, who works diligently on his software and other academics, can earn more points than his peers. |
One of the key elements in our education program
is the use of behaviorally-designed, self-teaching software that make use
of the technologies known as programmed instruction and precision
teaching. Some of the important features of this software, all of which
are found in one or more of our educational software programs, are listed
below:
B
Variable-strength, student-adjusted prompting.
Some of the software is designed with a unique prompting system that
enables the student to make use of a graded series of prompts (hints)
that will help him/her answer the problem correctly without giving away
the complete answer. The prompts include such things as the length of
the word in question, the number of letters in the word, the first
letter, last letter, interior letter(s), and even partially pixilated
letters that become more and more fully pixilated as the student
requests a higher and higher level of prompting. Such graded,
student-controlled prompting schemes facilitate the minimization of
errors, make efficient use of partial states of learning that might
otherwise be wasted, provide another way to measure the learning process
(through the degree of graded prompting that the student requires) and
have proven to be very popular with the students.
Mastery measured by rate correct/incorrect rather than
by percent. All of our software measures skill levels in terms of
rate correct and rate incorrect, instead of percent correct and
incorrect. Rate is a more sensitive measure than percent correct because
it takes into account time and enables the teacher to bring the student
to not only to the mastery a given skill but, more importantly, to
fluency (fluent mastery) of that skill.
Displays, for the student, his/her current rates
correct/incorrect. A thermometer display on the side of the
student’s screen shows the actual rates correct and incorrect of the
student’s performance. As the student’s rate correct goes up, a bar in
the thermometer rises (like a column of mercury in a real thermometer)
and as the rate correct goes down, the bar goes down. This display
essentially provides the student with his/her own individual speedometer
to assess his/her progress.
No advance until mastery of current skill. The
software may also require the student to master each skill fluently
before he/she is allowed to advance to learning the next skill in the
sequence. This eliminates the problem – which can often happen in
traditional mathematics instruction – in which a student fails to learn
a particular skill and, as a result, later finds him/herself hopelessly
behind as the rest of the class progresses.
Built-in review of previously mastered skills.
Wherever possible the software is designed so that later chapters
automatically review skills that were learned in earlier chapters. In
one software program (the JRC Tutor) questions answered incorrectly the
first time a student encounters them are re-presented both at the end of
that set of questions and in the questions presented in the third
chapter after the current chapter.
The software is presented on networked computers and deposits the
students’ performance data in files that are accessible from the teacher’s
and administrators’ computers. This enables a teacher or administrator to
easily and frequently monitor the student’s progress on a daily basis and
to intervene immediately when necessary.
This software is very convenient for staff, who are able to access it at
any computer, both in the school building or from their home computer.
Because of this, we have moved some of our annual training to the JRC
tutor. Staff are assigned lessons and work on them at their own pace. If
they are not able to complete a lesson, they can exit the training and
come back to that same spot at another time. All lessons completed are
saved, so that there is a permanent record of what lessons are completed. 
In
cases where appropriate JRC-designed software is not available,
instruction may also be presented by means of flash cards, worksheets,
Practice Mill software, and text material. When doing so, we make use of
as many of the behavioral instructional principles described above (small
steps, measurement of rate rather than percent, no advance until mastery
of the current step, self-pacing, etc.) as possible.
JRC's behavior
modification system is used to motivate the students to use the software
described above to acquire new skills. Each of our higher-functioning
students is allowed to earn up to or in excess of 2000 points per day. An
individualized decision is made as to what percentage of this total must
be earned through his or her academics and what percentage must be earned
by demonstrating appropriate behaviors. Changes in this allocation are
made on an individual basis as necessary. 