Behavioral
Theories: TutorialsBehavioral
Theories: Tutorials* Content adapted from Maddux, C. D., Johnson, D. L., & Willis, J. W. (1997). Educational computing: Learning with tomorrow's technologies. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Whereas drill and practice software is designed to provide a way to practice a skill that has already been learned, tutorial software is designed to teach the skill in the first place by direct instruction methods. While tutorial software may include elements of drill and practice and assessment, it is unique in that it presents new information and may be represented as providing an independent teaching environment. In its purest form, tutorial software is the embodiment of the teaching machine. The software takes the learner through a sequence of steps by first, present a new idea, concept, or task; present a query designed to assess the student's grasp of the new idea; provide feedback on the student's response; and finally branch the learner to a different sequence based on his or her performance.
The examples below illustrate some of the types of tutorial programs available today. You can read the explanation of how these programs work or download a version of the program to try it out on your computer.
ExamplesInsecta is a basic entomology shareware program for age 8 and up. It assumes learners have little or none previous knowledge of insects. On the introduction page, the texts read as follows: "Insects have exactly six (6) legs and a jointed external skeleton called an 'exoskeleton.' They do not have bones the people do. Insects have three main body regions. They are the Head, Thorax, and Abdomen." It then asks the learners to mix and match different parts of the insect shown on the following screen.
After gaining some fundamental idea of what an insect is, learners then branch out to learn 8 different kinds of insects: Odonata, Hymenoptera, Lepidoptera, Lepidoptera, Hemiptera, Coleoptera, Diptera, Homoptera, Maantodea. A typical screen has graphic takes up three fourth of the screen while text explanation only takes up one fourth of the screen. Learners can choose to repeat any unit at any time by clicking on the menu.
The learners can also test their newly acquired knowledge by taking either of the two on-line tests.
To try out this shareware program, you must first click on setup.exe on the ET-IT CD-ROM under the programs/insect/ subdirectory through File Manager or Windows Explorer.
Click here to know more about installation.
SoftAlchemy is both a P-table and a chemistry facts tutorial shareware program. It should suit users from grade school up to university. It is packed with facts of all elements (12 different subjects and elements), chemistry and physics. From the drag-down menu of the "welcome" screen, learners know what the numbers on top of the screen stands for, make their selections and start the units they need to learn.
A typical screen lists all the related facts about a certain topic, for example, thermodynamicor vapor pressure of water. This program provides all sorts of facts without demanding higher-order thinking from the learners.
The following screen capture is an example of the facts provided by SofAlchemy -- thermodynamic data.
The following screen capture is another example of the facts of provided by SofAlchemy -- facts of the elements.
The following screen capture is an example of the P-Table.
What is special about SoftAlchemy is that it provides learners direct links to Windows Calculator and Notepad so that learners can have both tools handy whenever they need calculation or taking notes and saving notes, as shown in the following two screens.
The following screen capture is an example of the calculator.
The following screen capture is an example of the notepad.
To try out this trial program, you must install it on your computer's hard drive. To do that you must copy the folder called salchemy to your hard drive. That folder is on the CD-ROM in the subdirectory called programs/salchemy /. You might create a subdirectory on your computer named EDSoft (only if you do not already have one). Then you could copy salchemy into the EDSoft subdirectory. Once you have copied salchemy over to your hard drive you can use the standard Windows procedure to install that program by clicking on ttsetup.exe in the EDSoft/salchemy / folder on your hard drive. Then follow the directions on the screen.
Click here to know more about installation.
This menu-driven Windows shareware program is designed for people who want to learn typing. It is a combination of typing tutorial, speed test, and typing game. For the typing test unit, learners are asked to copy sentences right below the lines. Learners can monitor their own progress by viewing words per minute typing speed and accuracy rate showing on the status bar. Errors need to be fixed before the program allows the learners to continue on typing the following letter. At the end there will be a pop-up windows summarizing performance, including accuracy rate, numbers of mistakes, and words per minute typing speed.
The following is a screen-shot of the typing game. Learners have to find and hit the keyboard as fast as they can the letters showing on the small box while the arrow shooting the man on the rope from the right hand side.
At any point of the program, learners can request to view history display for activities log, results display for test results. The following screen is the test result screen which provides information on typing speed (word per minute), slowest letters, for example, "j", "i", and "d" as shown on the following screen. It also provides a chart analyzing the overall distribution of all letters.
To try out this demo program, you must first click on ttwin.exe in the programs/ttype/ subdirectory on the ET-IT CD-ROM through File Manager or Windows Explorer.
Click here to know more about installation.
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