Education

Interactive, Diagnostic, Student Paced Computer Aided Instruction

There should be a state program to develop computer aided instruction for elementary and secondary schools.  Programs would be developed in specific subjects at all grade levels.  These programs would provide student paced instruction automatically tailored to the specific capabilities of the student. These programs would be capable of identifying areas of student weaknesses and providing remedial learning. They should also be capable of taking the student well beyond the grade level if his or her capabilities warrant.   For the teacher, these programs should provide documentation and analysis of the student effort and progress.

Legislation should create a small office to manage the effort.  It should be staffed by about four people with education and computer skills.  This office would establish relationships with state universities which have Education and Computer Science departments.  At these universities, teams of students would select development projects as their theses.  A team would consist of one or two Education majors with a like number of Computer Science majors.  The state staff would encourage, facilitate, monitor, and support the university teams.  The state staff would identify and disseminate best practices developed among the many projects.  The staff would identify sufficiently mature projects and arrange for their testing at selected public schools.  The state office would be provided limited funding for internships and expenses associated with these developments.

After, successful initial testing, programs developed would be made available to a larger test group of public schools and eventually released to all schools in the state.  The state office would seek opportunities to cooperate with any similar efforts in other states.

This should be a very active and open program seeking new ideas from all reasonable sources.  These sources would include active and retired teachers and others who come forward.