12 TechTrends • November/December 2012 Volume 56, Number 6 The History Corner Individualized Instruction: A Recurrent Theme By Michael Molenda S ince the earliest days of peda- gogy, educators have recognized that learners differ in numerous ways and that it would be desirable to cater to these differences and to each student gain the maximum from their educational experience. In an- cient times individualizing was not an overt concern since one-to-one tu- toring was the dominant mode. Later, as formal education spread to larger segments of society and group meth- ods came into vogue, the issue rose to prominence. In the 18th century Rousseau and Pestalozzi developed pedagogical theories around the con- cept of individual growth. The 20th century brought mass education, a more industrial mode of schooling in which standardized whole-group instruction predominat- ed. The tradeoff for reaching masses was a loss in personalization and re- duced effectiveness for many. There were some notable efforts to break away from the group mode. Frederic Lister Burk and his colleagues at San Francisco State Normal School in 1912 prepared self-instructional units permitting elementary stu- dents to progress at their own pace. Carleton W. Washburne’s Winnetka Plan, developed a few years later, incorporated this idea in a whole re- structured school curriculum (Saet- tler, 1990). Despite these examples, group-paced instruction continued to dominate in practice. At about the same time, Edward L. Thorndike was formulating general principles of learning, including the law of effect: responses are learned depending upon whether they are fol- lowed by desirable or undesirable con- sequences. He then proposed in 1912 what Saettler considers the frst tech- nology of instruction—imagining the arrangement of a textbook in which the reader could progress only by showing comprehension of what had been read (Saettler, p. 56). Inspired by Thorndike’s challenge, Sidney Pressey produced “a machine for automatic teaching of drill material” (1927) that fulflled this prescription. It found sup- port in military training, but gained little attention among educators. Meanwhile, a separate field of study and practice was emerging in the 1920’s, known originally as visual instruction, later audiovisual instruc- tion. It was primarily concerned with presentations to large groups, in either face-to-face classroom settings or re- mote settings, as in educational radio. The early literature of the feld made no references to the work of Thorn- dike or Pressey or to individualization. In the early 1950s psychologist B.F. Skinner modifed Thorndike’s principles and demonstrated that by manipulating the consequences of behavior (referred to as operant conditioning) he could elicit quite complex new behaviors from labora- tory animals. Prompted by his own experiences with schools as a parent, Skinner developed a mechanical de- vice for interactive learning, referred to by others as a “teaching machine” (Skinner, 1954), which gained na- tional attention. An unlikely alliance between au- diovisualists and psychologists came about largely because programmed materials were initially encased in- side “teaching machines,” and when such machines were acquired by schools they came under the care of the audiovisual coordinator. Within