HUMANS CAN LEARN FROM THEIR "VIRTUAL" SUCCESSES
All animals learn from their own successes, but according to Peter W.
Dowrick, humans can also learn from successes they have not yet had.
Dowrick's theory represents a radical departure from traditional behavioral
psychology, which holds that people learn from the positive and negative
feedback they get from actual experience. But in more than 20 years of
research, Dowrick, a psychologist at Children's Seashore House in
Philadelphia, has shown that his theory works, and he is now drawing on
that theory to teach disadvantaged children how to read. Using a method he
calls "video feedforward," Dowrick uses skillful editing to create
videotapes of people appearing to do things they have not yet actually
done. By watching the tapes, people get the confidence and know-how to
master those skills. In the classroom, slow readers are videotaped as they
"echo" or repeat words or short passages read by a tutor. Dowrick and his
colleagues then edit the tapes, cutting out the tutor and splicing together
sequential images of the child reading. At the end, the child has a video
of himself doing what he thought he could never do, successfully reading a
story. According to Dowrick, by watching the video, the child gains both
the belief that he can read and the skill to do so. Dowrick's theory was
implemented at the Joseph Catharine Elementary School in West Philadelphia
last year as part of a three year experiment. In the past year, the school
dramatically reduced the number of children who had to repeat the first
grade because of reading problems from 20 percent of the first grade class
in 1996 to 12.5 percent last spring.
Huntly Collins, Knight-Ridder Newspapers
"New 'video feedforward' technique helps students experience success"
as published in The Seattle Times, November 4, 1997, E8
Kelleen Toohey
Associate professor
Faculty of Education
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6
ph. 604-291-4418
FAX 604-888-4623