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Many educators question whether humans can be taught this way. But there is already ample evidence that in subjects that lend themselves easily to fragment learning, e.g., grammar, spelling, foreign languages, mathematics, automated teaching is far more efficient than the old-fashioned blackboard. New York's Collegiate School for boys tried teaching machines in math, found that 73 students completed in only two weeks an abstract-algebra course that usually requires two months. The Roanoke public schools used teaching machines on 34 eighth-graders—with no oral teaching and no homework—and in less than one semester, all 34 completed a year's work in algebra.
No Hesitation. Untrammeled by theory, many a U.S. corporation has already put the efficiency of programed learning to work in job training and company-sponsored adult-education courses. Bell Laboratories has a programed course in basic electricity for its employees. Polaroid offers programed courses to its employees in extracurricular subjects like languages and photography. Eastman Kodak is programing logarithms, economics and industrial relations. All are using programing without machines.
Grolier's Min-Max will be the first full-scale commercial test of the teaching machine's appeal, and both industry and education will watch the results closely. Grolier hopes to sell $5,000,000 worth of Min-Max machines and programed courses in the first year, give a boost to Grolier profits ($2,100,000 in 1960's first half). If Grolier succeeds, the teaching-machine boom will be on.