Behavioral
Theories: DrillsBehavioral
Theories: Drills* Content adapted from Maddux, C. D., Johnson, D. L., & Willis, J. W. (1997). Educational computing: Learning with tomorrow's technologies. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Drills are software designed to allow the user to practice a skill that has already been acquired or taught. A common type of drill and practice software involves practicing math skills such as multiplying two digit numbers. There are thousands of drill and practice programs that teach everything from math facts to sight vocabulary, parts of speech, names of the fifty states, and many other types of facts or basic skills.
The examples below illustrate some of the types of drill and practice 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.
ExamplesThe ESL Demons trial program from Merit Software is designed for students whose knowledge of English ranges from beginner to intermediate in standard written English. It is also useful for Special Education students who need help in using simple, clear English.
The program includes a game and an individual drill.
The software designers recommend that students play the game first so that the teacher can identify those drill units that present problems to the student. The Record Management program will show the number of times the student has played each drill. The drill may then be used for extra help for those students who need it. For the School version of the program there is a hide/show feature that permits teachers to activate or deactivate the Customized Drill.
The ESL Demons program provides practice at different levels of difficulty. The program consists of six levels with twelve ESL Demons, or topics, per level. Each level contains many ESL topics. The program helps students cope with troublesome points of English grammar, usage, and spelling. Sentences contain up to four highlighted choices, and one of which is not appropriate in standard written English. The program provides explanations that teach the underlying grammatical concepts.
For example, for the question: "Yesterday the wind suddenly blows me off my feet." Learners are supposed to use the mouse or TAB key to select the error. As shown on the following screen capture, if the answer is correct, the following screen will say "Good! You found the error" and then provide an explanation: "Blows should be blew. The action takes place in the past. The past tense of this verb is not formed in the regular way. It must be specially learned." If the learner's answer is incorrect, the screen say "Sorry! The error is highlighted" and still provide the same explanation.
Instructions are placed in color boxes at the bottom of the screen. The number appearing at the end of the last line of instructions on the screen indicates the position of the cursor in the total number of records. Just before this number is a description of what information is being displayed, e.g., name, date, etc.
In the Demons Game, the Demons are presented to the student in the same order in which they are listed in the program guide. In each round, the student is given twelve sentences which cover the material for three Demons. There are four randomly selected sentences per Demon. To master a Demon, the student must choose the correct answer for all four sentences in the round. Until the student gets the four sentences correct, s/he will continue to receive sentences for that Demon in subsequent rounds. For the final round, if fewer than three Demons remain unmastered in the game, the round will include only those Demons still unmastered.
The records can go to the screen or the printer. Teachers may see the records of the entire class, or choose an individual student's scores. If the teacher chooses to look at the scores of the entire class, he/she may have them displayed in alphabetical order or from highest to lowest.
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 esl to your hard drive. That folder is on the CD-ROM in the subdirectory called programs/esl/. You might create a subdirectory on your computer named EDSoft (only if you do not already have one). Then you could copy esl into the EDSoft subdirectory. Once you have copied esl over to your hard drive you can use the standard Windows procedure to install that program by clicking on install.exe in the EDSoft/esl/ folder on your hard drive. Then follow the directions on the screen.
Click here to know more about installation.
As the following opening screen has shown, Math Problem Solver from Curriculum Associates has a number of objectives: (1) review mathematical concepts commonly seen, (2) develop the problem-solving abilities of learners, (3) improve mathematical "communication" skills of learners, and (4) develop confidence in mathematical ability.
Math Problem Solver is available in level 1 through 8. Teachers or parents can choose the level that best suits learner needs. As shown on the following screen, each level includes units from six major topics heads:
The purpose of the units are to review what learners will recognize but may need additional practice with.
To develop problem-solving ability, units begin with learners solving two-step and three-step problems. If the learner feels unable to solve a problem or chooses an incorrect solution, a Walk-Through of the problem-solving process begins. Learners can request for Walk Through to help them solve problems they have difficulty with.
Each unit includes activities based on the theme of the unit. Learners complete graphs, make links, participate in click-and-change activities, and manipulate data to complete each activities. The purpose of the activities is to rehearse and apply the knowledge the learner have just gained.
Learners may also create their own problems basing on the knowledge they have built up so far, as shown on the following screen.
Throughout the Math Problem Solver program, learners' progress is recorded. The teacher can access a variety of reports at any time.
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 mps to your hard drive. That folder is on the CD-ROM in the subdirectory called programs/mps/. You might create a subdirectory on your computer named EDSoft (only if you do not already have one). Then you could copy mps into the EDSoft subdirectory. Once you have copied mps over to your hard drive you can use the standard Windows procedure to install that program by clicking on install.exe in the EDSoft/mps/ folder on your hard drive. Then follow the directions on the screen.
Click here to know more about installation.
Easy Match is a drill and practice program for early childhood. This program will display three pictures and one word on the screen at the same time. Click on picture that matches the word , while holding button down, drag the picture on the word, release button.
This unregistered version has a total of 35 pictures and words making 105 combinations. The following is a screen capture from Easy Match. The object is to select the picture that matches the word in the box. Then drag and drop the picture in the box. In the following example, learners are supposed to drag on the bird and drop it on the word "bird". The "0" displaying on the left hand corner is to keep track of the number of questions the learners have answered correctly.
The program's interaction with learners is kept to the minimum in this software program. For example, there are only two responses to the answer -- either a "YES" or a "NO". The program provides no walk through or explanation of the question.
When they get Ten(10) correct in a row a shuttle appears saying Good Work!. Learner may then choose either to try again or exit.
This demonstration program is a simpler version of the registered version, which has a total of 100 pictures and words making 300 combinations.
To try out this demonstration program, you must install it on your computer's hard drive. To do that you must copy the folder called match to your hard drive. That folder is on the CD-ROM in the subdirectory called programs/match/. You might create a subdirectory on your computer named EDSoft (only if you do not already have one). Then you could copy match into the EDSoft subdirectory. Once you have copied match over to your hard drive you can use the standard Windows procedure to install that program by clicking on install.exe in the EDSoft/match/ folder on your hard drive. Then follow the directions on the screen.
Click here to know more about installation.
This shareware program is designed with entry level statistics students in mind. The students can choose to learn units covering frequency distributions, histograms, polygons, mode, medium, and mean, and measure of variation. This disk can be keyed to six listed textbooks such as Understanding Statistics, Elementary Statistics, Statistics and Probability. The user may work problems from the textbooks by choosing a especial configuration. Instead of typing in an answer to a problem, the user may change the level, return to the menu, change the problem, or see the solution. The user can easily "dump" any screen to the printer by just pressing the PRT SC key.
This drill and practice software provides interactive onl-line help depending on the five difficulty level decided by the users. For example, in the mode, medium, and mean unit, when asked what the mean for the distribution is as shown in the following screen, the Level 3 students may choose to show the solution to the question in three steps.
At the end, the program shows the students either the cumulative grades or the current grades.
To try out this shareware program you must click on profstat.exe in the programs/stat/ subdirectory on ET-IT CD-ROM through File Manager or Windows Explorer.
Click here to know more about installation.
Additional
InformationThis web page reviews the history of drill and practice computer software from 1950's to present. It argues that drill and practice type of instruction grew out of the work done at IBM in the early 1950's; however, it peaked in the post-Sputnik1960's when federal funds were abundant for CAI research and development. Having been labeled as boring and of low quality (Alessi, 1991), popularity for drill and practice CAI has waned over the last two decades. Yet drill and practice is still prevalent in the fields of mathematics, foreign language, and vocabulary building.
This web page also argues that drill and practice CAI is based upon a behaviorist model:
URL: http://copper.ucs.indiana.edu/~jberiswi/page3.html
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