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Thorndike publishes Animal Intelligence. Thorndike's theories are at the center of the the psychological theory of learning called behaviorism, which paves the way for radical behaviorism and the works of B.F. Skinner. -
B. F. Skinner creates a "teaching machine," a mechanical device that allows for individually guided study in which reinforcement outcomes could be carefully controlled. "In Skinner's new format the content was arranged in small steps, or frames, of information" (Foundations of Learning Instruction Design Technology, 62) -
After examining programmed instruction, Ellson detected weaknesses, which lead to him developing a new approach to the teaching-learning process. "Programmed tutoring (PT) puts the learner together with a tutor who has been trained to follow a structured pattern for guiding the tutee." (*Foundations, 69) Ellson gets around the problem of not having enough instructors for a 1:1 teacher-student ratio by suggesting peer tutoring, which helps the tutors learn as well. -
PI developers began relying on lessons in book format over elaborate mechanisms. Short units, or frames, would be followed by a question, with the answer on the lower portion of the page. No longer bogged down by having to provide hardware and software, a publishing boom of programmed instruction books of all kinds quickly followed. The publishing boom began to level off after around 1966.
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Crowder develops branching programming (what he called intrinsic programming). Where Skinner's programs were linear, Crowder's programmed learning offered more flexibility in structure, allowing users to skip material that was easy for them or to branch off into remedial frames when they ran into problems. -
The Department of Audio Visual Instruction (DAVI) changes its name to Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). This illustrates the shift in thinking about instructional technology, that it "could be viewed as a way of thinking about instruction, not just a conglomeration of devices (Foundations, 68). The application of scientific thinking came to be thought of as soft technology, and the various communications media as hard technology.