Drills

The term drill sounds boring and even demeaning. Some teachers seriously maintain that drills are useless. Perhaps they are associating drills with rote memory - as when we "drill" information into a child's head by repeating it over and over in monotonous fashion.

If we define a drill as an exercise that provides repeated practice and feedback regarding a designated objective, however, it becomes obvious that drills play an important role in education. Both Figure 2.8 and Figure 2.9 present examples of drills. The first emphasizes simple rote memory of XXX. The second calls for application of fairly complex understanding of XXX.

Drill and practice programs give students feedback for responses as they practice skills or concepts previously taught. As Chapter 3 will show, practice of a concept or skill beyond initial mastery is often essential; but this does not mean that drills are the only or even the best way to supply this practice. The additional practice can often occur in the context of a practical application or as part of the progression to the next objective in a unit of instruction. However, for many students, a drill on basic information can be a valuable tool for making this information a part of their basic repertoires before moving on to higher level objectives.

Misuse of Drills

The following five guidelines are especially pertinent in avoiding the misuse of drills:

1. Unsupervised drills are part of the practice stage, not of the learning stage of instruction. (This distinction between the learning and practice phases of instruction is discussed further in Chapter 5. Unsupervised drills are likely to be useful only if the student gives the right answer about 90-95% of the time. If drills are to be used in the learning stage of instruction, they should usually be used with teacher guidance, as described in Chapter 5.)
   
   
2. There is no point in drilling on information that the student does not understand. If a student has misconceptions about information, a drill is not likely to correct them. (It is possible for students to use negative or corrective feedback from a drill as a basis for asking the right questions to overcome misunderstandings; however, they have to learn to do this. Drills do not cause this to happen.)
   
   
3. Drills can be overdone. Once students have thoroughly mastered an objective, repeated performance of the same activities that helped attain that mastery is likely to become tedious. If repeated practice is necessary (and it often is), it should occur in an interesting way that is likely to avoid boredom.
   
   
4. Drills are often used when they should not be used. This is because they are easy to employ, even by teachers who do not thoroughly understand the concepts, skills, or principles covered by the drill. Teachers should select tutorial, simulation, or tool software - or noncomputerized strategies - when their goal is to teach new information. Drills are designed to provide practice on objectives already taught in some other context.
   
   
5. When drills are used inappropriately, they often backfire by giving the impression that a topic (for example, a concept in science) is difficult and abstract, and that the best (or only!) way to learn it is through memorization without understanding the concepts. This false impression may reduce the student's willingness to engage in more productive learning strategies.
   
   
6. When they give right answers in simple drills, students sometimes feel that they are practicing information or skills correctly, when in reality they are practicing misconceptions that cannot be exposed until they use these skills in a realistic (non-drill) situation.

In spite of these caveats, good computerized drills can provide excellent opportunities for practice and feedback with regard to important concepts, principles, and skills. Good drill programs may come in a game format, in a presentation/question format, or in a quiz format and may cover a wide variety of topics. Examples of a few good science drills can be found in Figure 2.10.

At their best, drills help students develop automaticity - important skills and concepts become so familiar that students can use them without deliberate thought when pursuing higher level activities. At their worst, drills trivialize the subject matter by making students focus on lower level activities to the exclusion of applying these skills and concepts to the higher level activities that the subject matter is really about. However, well-designed software offers some advantages not displayed by traditional drill activities (completing workbook pages, doing problems and questions, writing out the vocabulary, etc.). These advantages arise only if the software is well designed and properly employed.

At their worst, computerized drills trivialize the subject matter by making students focus on lower level activities to the exclusion of applying these skills and concepts to the higher level activities that the subject matter is really about.

Advantages of Computerized Drills

The major advantages of the computerized drill include its ability to present the material with a colorful, animated, graphic while focusing attention, eliciting interaction, and encouraging involvement of multiple modalities. In addition, the computer can provide immediate feedback to allow students to correct their mistakes immediately, instead of waiting until the homework is checked the next day.

One of the serious problems in group instruction is that the group moves on immediately after the slowest students have shown even a tentative mastery of the information under study. These slowest students are the very ones who most need to "overlearn" the material - that is, they need to practice it until it has become automatic (as it already has for the fastest students in the group). When slower students do not get an opportunity to overlearn basic concepts, they are almost certainly doomed to difficulty and failure when they approach more complex ideas. This is where the computer can provide an immense advantage in arranging for effective use of learning time. By working at computer terminals, students can get practice pursuing objectives tailored to their own needs. An additional advantage is that the learner must respond to every problem presented by the computer (not just when he or she is called on by the teacher), and feedback is immediate.

A young student we know recently brought home a worksheet on "discounts." He had finished the paper in school and showed it to his father for his response before turning it in. He had missed all twenty of the items because he had misunderstood the concept entirely. The teacher had given a clear presentation and then told the students to do the worksheets on their own and ask her if they had any questions. Since this child thought he understood the concept, he asked no questions. As a result, he wasted half an hour practicing the wrong way to solve the problems. Once his father pointed out the mistake, he spent another half hour practicing the correct skill. Had he been working with a good computer program, he would have received corrective feedback immediately. When he missed the first problem, at the very least he would have paused to wonder what was wrong. If the program had a tutorial loop, the program itself could have helped him overcome his misconception. Or he could have taken advantage of the teacher's invitation and gone to her for help.

A computerized drill will be effective to the extent that it imitates a one-on-one contact between a teacher and student performing a recitation or doing productive seatwork. Whether delivered by an individualizing tutor, by a worksheet, or by a computer, a good practice exercise should:

• Focus clearly on appropriate instructional objectives.
  
  
• State the problem or question so that the student knows what to do.
  
  
• Refrain from giving irrelevant clues.
  
  
• Provide appropriate advice, tools, or prerequisite information needed to give the response.
  
  
• Give immediate feedback for the learner's response.
  
  
• Provide remedial information if necessary.
  
  
• Move to easier or more difficult levels of questions as the learner's responses indicate.
  
  
• Provide continued practice until the learner shows mastery of the objectives under consideration.

Some computerized drills can carry out all of these instructional activities. This is not always necessary, however, or even desirable. As we shall discuss later, in many cases the teacher or student will need a computerized drill to support only a few specific components of the learning process.

Figure 2.11 shows a simple example of useful feedback supplied by the computer. The learner has demonstrated confusion by indicating that he thinks Abraham Lincoln was the first president of the United States. The computer has responded by stating that George Washington is the answer it is seeking. Moreover, the computer goes on to show that Abraham Lincoln was actually the sixteenth president of the United States, during the time of the Civil War. A confused student could carefully read this screen to understand the difference between Washington and Lincoln. This is a simple but important strategy. If the learner has confused two persons or concepts, the best time to point out the distinction is immediately after the mistake has occurred.

Some computerized drills present their questions in an invariant sequence. Others use complete randomization. Both approaches have weaknesses. If the questions always occur in the same sequence, then students will get answers right simply because they remember the order or because they catch hints from previous questions, rather than because they understand the concept. (If the answer to question 1 is always "Ohio" and question 2 is always "California," students may get these answers right simply by memorizing the order.) Therefore, randomized presentation of questions is important. Complete randomization, however, presents a different shortcoming. If a parent is reviewing her daughter's spelling words by asking her to spell them at random, and the child misses one of the words, is it a good idea to continue asking the words completely at random? No. A better idea would be to continue to ask the child to spell most of the words at random, but to interject the target word two or three times within the next fifty words. Considerable evidence shows that the same strategy works in most curriculum areas: Reviewing a question that a learner has recently answered incorrectly will help the student eliminate the error and come to a correct understanding of the topic. Therefore, an ideal program should select questions at random, but it should also give priority to randomly interjecting questions that have recently been answered incorrectly.

Evaluating Drills

The following questions will help you evaluate and select computerized drills:

• Does the program require the learner's active interaction?
  
  
• Does the program avoid irrelevant clues (such as invariant order of questions) that will permit the learner to answer questions correctly without mastering concepts and skills?
  
  
• Does the program provide accurate, immediate, and informative feedback for learner responses?
  
  
• Does the program permit the learner to control the rate at which he or she must respond?
  
  
• Does the program use graphics to draw attention to important pieces of information?
  
  
• Does the program focus on one concept at a time by using screen space effectively?
  
  
• Does the program provide the learner with all information necessary prior to giving a response?
  
  
• Does the program provide appropriate help screens?
  
  
• Does the program provide tutorial assistance when the student makes an error or requests it?
  
  
• Does the program use correct language, spelling, and grammar?
  
  
• Does the program attempt to identify and remediate the student's misconceptions?
  
  
• When the learner gives a wrong answer, does the computer review that item later in the drill?
  
  
• Does the computer keep track of student errors and provide information on mistakes at the end of the program?
  
  
• Does the computer keep a record of student performance that can be viewed by the teacher at a convenient time?
  
  
• Does the computer provide personalized feedback (for example, calling the student by name)?
  
  
• Does the computer present the drill in a motivational format?
  
  
• Does the program permit the student or teacher to turn off options (such as sound and fancy feedback) that will not be useful for some learners?
  
  
• Does the computer automatically adjust for the student's ability (giving harder questions after several right answers, for example, or easier questions after wrong answers)?
  
  
• Does the program permit the teacher to individualize the assignment by setting options ahead of time for specific students?
  
  
• Is it easy to integrate the software with other computerized or noncomputerized instructional materials available to the learner?
  
  
• Does the program present information in learning styles compatible with those of the learner?
  
  
• Does the program permit easy cooperative learning and peer tutoring by small groups at the computer?

As with tutorials, we cannot identify the "best" drill simply by assigning numerical values to the answers to these questions. The best drill for a specific purpose will depend on what the student and teacher want that drill to accomplish. For example, a drill that supplies no help screens may be effective if the student has access to written materials that supply all the necessary help. Likewise, a program that offers no corrective feedback may be regarded as worthless if used by unsupervised students, but excellent if it is used by students in a context of scaffolded instruction from a skilled teacher. (The use of scaffolded instruction with computers is discussed in chapter 3.) Note also that if a drill contains supplementary tutorial components, these should be evaluated with the questions at the end of the tutorial section of this chapter. In short, a good computer drill should act in much the same way as a good tutor. In selecting drills, choose those that either apply effective strategies by themselves or can be combined with other teaching strategies to provide an effective instructional package.

Examples of Drills

Here are some more examples of drills. Click on a title to see a description of the program, or skip them and go on to the next section of this chapter:

{Add several drills here. Model them on the supplementary list from the tutorial segment.}

Click here to go to the next section of this chapter.