I was heartened to see some material
about effective teaching systems in
the recent issue of The Mad Hatter.
I would like to support the trend
by submitting the enclosed article
about "UNIVISION." I have saved

my copy of the article for years,

 

awaiting just this golden oe

opportunity to influence a large
group of college teachers.
Selection 67 !NTRODUCTION

Enclosure

Bell KO
Bill Kelley - Instructor
Criminology

CS. Ke.

Original signed b

_ \W. R. KELLEY
i Psychologist

In the past two decades many devices have been created which have proven to be
of substantial benefit to education. Certainly among the most promising of the new
developments we must list closed-circuit television. However, the major disadvan-
tage of closed-circuit television is the high cost which makes it unavailable to many
schools. Silverman presents the requirements of an ideal system for mass education

and finds a prime candidate in a marvelous device which has been with us for some

time.

Selection 67

TELEVISION
TEACHING*

Ss. J, SILVERMAN

University of Toledo

The use of closed-circuit television in colleges
has now reached a point where it is perhaps
worthwhile to review the method and to con-
sider possible improvements. Television tech-
niques have arisen primarily because of the
present and anticipated increased enrollments
in the colleges. This has led to large lecture
sessions in which many students have either
not been able to hear the lecturer or to see the
lecture demonstrations. Since the purpose of a
lecture is to present an organized body of ma-
terial to the student in an easily assimilated
form this has led to a dilemma. Television has
presented a way out of the dilemma. By plac-
ing the lecturer and demonstration in a studio
and putting the students in a separate class-
room with strategically placed receivers each
student is enabled to see a close-up view of
both the lecturer and the demonstration. The
television method has also disposed of another
problem faced by our financially hard pressed
colleges. By adding to the number of receivers
it is possible to reduce materially the number

"Reprinted from S. J. Silverman, “Univision: A New
Approach to Closed Circuit Television Teaching,”
American Scientist, 45: 186A-192A, 1957, Reprinted

by permission of the author and publisher.

418

UNIVISION: A NEW
APPROACH TO
CLOSED CIRCUIT

of lecturers formerly needed. Questions from
the students may be taken care of by placing
intercommunication networks between studio
and classrooms. This is, however, not a major
problem inasmuch as most students never ask
questions at lectures and our purpose is to
provide education for the mass of students
rather than the individual. Individual instruc-
tion would, in principle at least, be preferable,
but, as practical educators, we must recognize
that the increased enrollments preclude this
possibility. It was, in fact, for this very reason
that the television technique was introduced.

Sufficient time has now elapsed so that a
preliminary judgment of television teaching can
be made. While the method does achieve the
objectives indicated in the preceding para-
graph, there are nevertheless definite disadvan-
tages. These are primarily financial in nature.
Thus the initial investment and subsequent
maintenance are outside the budget of many
of the smaller schools.

Let us now consider what can be done to
improve this situation. It is worthwhile first of
all presenting the requirements of an ideal
system which will achieve mass education at
minimum cost. These are: (a) the student
must be in close contact with both lecturer and
demonstrations; (b) capital investment in
equipment by the college should be low; (c)
maintenance costs should be low; (d) the ma-
terials should be re-usable for each new Class;
(e) the number of staff needed (including tech-
nicians) should be low; and (f) the number of
classrooms needed should be a minimum.

It is the purpose of this article to propose —