The MIT Press Podcast

Audrey Watters, "Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning" (MIT Press, 2021)


Listen Later

Contrary to the claims of many of today’s advocates of computerized instruction and online learning, efforts to use technology to improve the education process are hardly new. In Teaching Machines: The History of Personalized Learning (MIT Press, 2021), Audrey Watters recounts the attempts over the past century to use technology to improve educational procedures. These began over a century ago with psychologist Sidney Pressy’s effort to invent an “automatic teacher” that would eliminate drudgery by automating test scoring. While such efforts gained momentum in the 1930s, the attempts by manufacturers to profit from such technology often complicated their introduction and adoption. In the 1950s B. F. Skinner gave new life to these endeavors by developing devices and processes that applied his theories of behavioral psychology to the learning process. Though the idea of “push-button education” seized the public’s imagination and stimulated efforts to introduce his teaching machines to the classroom, by the end of the 1960s the growing backlash against Skinner’s ideas and regimentation in education ensured the demise of his vision of the automated classroom.

...more
View all episodesView all episodes
Download on the App Store

The MIT Press PodcastBy The MIT Press

  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8
  • 4.8

4.8

20 ratings


More shows like The MIT Press Podcast

View all
Freakonomics Radio by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Freakonomics Radio

32,078 Listeners

Planet Money by NPR

Planet Money

30,768 Listeners

The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

10,721 Listeners

Uncanny Valley | WIRED by WIRED

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

502 Listeners

Jacobin Radio by Jacobin

Jacobin Radio

1,460 Listeners

The Michael Shermer Show by Michael Shermer

The Michael Shermer Show

939 Listeners

Physics World Weekly Podcast by Physics World

Physics World Weekly Podcast

81 Listeners

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas by Sean Carroll | Wondery

Sean Carroll's Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas

4,176 Listeners

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss by Lawrence M. Krauss

The Origins Podcast with Lawrence Krauss

501 Listeners

MIT Technology Review Narrated by MIT Technology Review

MIT Technology Review Narrated

262 Listeners

People I (Mostly) Admire by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

People I (Mostly) Admire

2,080 Listeners

Hard Fork by The New York Times

Hard Fork

5,522 Listeners

The Freakonomics Radio Book Club by Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

The Freakonomics Radio Book Club

237 Listeners

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman by iHeartPodcasts

Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman

588 Listeners

Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker

Critics at Large | The New Yorker

659 Listeners