Test Pattern: Instructional Television at Scarborough College, University of Toronto 9781487576165

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Test Pattern

Test Pattern INSTRUCTIONAL TELEVISION AT SCARBOROUGH COLLEGE, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

John A. Lee UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS

© University of Toronto Press 1971 Toronto and Buffalo Printed in Canada Reprinted in 2018

ISBN 0-8020-1804-1 microfiche ISBN 0-8020-0124-6 ISBN 978-1-4875-7702-5 (paper)

LC 72-166932

To S. D. Clark, respected teacher and friend

CONTENTS PREFACE

xi

INTRODUCTION

XV

1

A TV COLLEGE IN THEORY

2

A TV COLLEGE IN PRACTICE

3

The revolt against television The Abbey Study 28

3

14 25

THE SCARBOROUGH TELEVISION FACILITIES AND STAFF

The television staff 37 The production pattern 39 The production record 42 Costs 44

4

SCARBOROUGH'S TELEVISION TEACHERS

5

FACULTY IN A TV COLLEGE 62 Anonymous survey of faculty 66

6

STUDENTS IN A TV COLLEGE 78 Surveys of Scarborough student attitudes to television: The graduates 81 The undergraduates 90

7

THE FUTURE VISION APPENDICES INDEX

122

107

97

48

34

TABLES 1 Excerpt from the September 1964 Proposed Budget for Scarborough Television Facilities, Showing Intended Expansion to University Distribution and Public Broadcasting xvii 2 Enrolment at Scarborough College as of December 1 Each Year

10

3 Production at Scarborough College Television Studios to October 1968 43 4 Costs of Some Programs from Appendix 2

45

5 Tentative Cost Schedule to University of Toronto Divisions for Scarborough College Television Productions 4 7 6 Overall Average Grades Among 130 'Television Graduates'

82

7 Television Graduates: Overall Average Grade in Each Year and Percentage Rating Television Teachers as 'Good' Users of the Medium 85 8 Ratings by Television Graduates According to Division

85

9 Total and Percentage Ratings by Television Graduates According to Extent of Experience of Televised Courses 86 10 'Good' and 'Poor' Instructional Television

88

11 Ratings by Television Undergraduates According to Division

92

12 Undergraduate Experience of Instructional Television and Rating Tendency 92 13 Second-Year Students' Ratings of Television Teachers According to Students' Overall Class Standing of B or D 92

x / Tables and Charts 14 Summary Table of Undergraduate and Graduate B-Average Students According to Tendency to Rate Television Teachers as 'Good' 94 15 Number of Future Televised Courses Undergraduates Willing to Enrol in According to the Number Already Experienced 94

CHARTS 1 A Typology of Scarborough Instructional Television Users

71

2 A Typology of Scarborough Instructional Television Users

76

x / Tables and Charts 14 Summary Table of Undergraduate and Graduate B-Average Students According to Tendency to Rate Television Teachers as 'Good' 94 15 Number of Future Televised Courses Undergraduates Willing to Enrol in According to the Number Already Experienced 94

CHARTS 1 A Typology of Scarborough Instructional Television Users

71

2 A Typology of Scarborough Instructional Television Users

76

PREFACE This report approaches the experiences and problems related to the installation of a major instructional television facility at Scarborough College, University of Toronto, from the viewpoint of the academic discipline of sociology. It will be inevitable, therefore, that the historian, political scientist, economist, psychologist, or other specialist, will not find in it some of the questions he might have raised had he examined the same events. A political scientist or historian, for example, would certainly have shown more interest in the decision-making process in the university and provincial government as a result of which Scarborough was planned as a 'TV college.' An economist would have paid more attention to the costyield ratios of instructional television. A psychologist would have pursued the fascinating complex of personal ambitions, anxieties, and resentments which still linger among some of the faculty members whenever television is discussed. Each of these approaches would be valid within the framework of its own technique and assumptions and, while there would certainly be overlap, there would also be important differences of interpretation. This report, then, is a report on Scarborough television, not the report. It tries to anticipate some of the important questions arising from approaches other than the sociological, but the central concern has been to treat 'social facts' in their own right as the most relevant data. Sociological explanation proceeds on the assumption that human actions may be analysed as expressions of the properties of the social system in which they occur. While not ignoring the obvious effect of individual 'personalities' involved in the Scarborough television experience, this report assumes that the main events were products of the social conditions and forces of the times. If, for example, conditions like the rapidly rising

xii / Preface student enrolment and the technological advances in instructional television had been the same, but different people had been making the major decisions at the university and in the Department of Education, then it could be argued that something rather like the Scarborough television experience would still have occurred somewhere in Ontario during the past decade. That is, this report definitely opposes the argument that Scarborough was something of a historical 'accident.' The above paragraphs are not intended as an apology for this sociological approach. Rather, they are an argument for paying attention to the implications of the phenomena themselves when studying the Scarborough television experience, instead of attempting to blame, praise, or excuse the particular persons involved. Throughout this report, individua] identification is avoided, not merely out of respect for privacy and to assure anonymity which made access possible to otherwise inaccessible data, but also because of a conviction that the personalities involved are not really the major issue. We must go beyond the personalities to the larger and still unresolved question of the role of television in higher education. Perhaps an examination of the television experience at Scarborough College during the past six years will lead to the discovery of a meaningful pattern for the future of the college, as well as a wider message for all concerned with the improvement of university education. The research for this report was conducted in 1970, and was financed by the Instructional Media Centre of the University of Toronto. The centre commissioned this study for the purpose of obtaining a first-hand review of the achievements and failings of the recent experiment in instructional television at Scarborough. Many persons have contributed to the material gathered in this report. I would especially like to express my appreciation to my colleagues who cooperated so honestly and willingly in interviews concerning their experience with instructional television, and to the television staff in the college for their information and assistance. In particular, I would like to express my grateful thanks to Mr RD.Rodgers, formerly supervisor of the Scarborough studios, for providing answers to many questions asked on numerous occasions over a period of six months. The principal, dean, assistant dean, registrar, and others in the college I may have overlooked, all provided necessary data and assistance. Mr Douglas Todgham, director of the Instructional Media Centre, has

Preface I xiii

provided both encouragement and inspiration, as well as useful criticism. The points of view as well as any errors are my own responsibility. Nothing in this report should necessarily be taken as the opinion or policy of the Instructional Media Centre, or of Scarborough College, or of the University of Toronto.

INTRODUCTION

'It all started with the pressures of numbers,' explained one of the key people involved in the original decision to make Scarborough a TV college.1 In 1962, the Committee of Presidents of Provincially-Assisted Universities of Ontario foresaw a grave educational crisis arising in the province within the decade if immediate action were not taken.2 Projection of a rapidly increasing student population and slowly expanding university facilities suggested that ten thousand future university students would have nowhere to enrol in 1972. Even if the physical plant could be constructed in time to accommodate these students, there would be a critical shortage of trained staff to teach them. The committee's report made a number of recommendations, including generous graduate aid programs to increase the supply of available teachers, establishment of several new universities and two new colleges at the University of Toronto, establishment of technological colleges (now known as 'community colleges'), and other steps. Most of these recommendations were carried out remarkably quickly by a provincial government eager to avoid the predicted crisis. However, one radical possibility suggested by the report was not carried out. This was the establishment of an Ontario College which would teach students throughout the province at home, by means of public television and in co-operation with local universities, where testing and grading would be carried out. Instead, the enthusiasm for instructional television shown by the 1962 report, and more emphatically in a supplementary report in June 1965,3 was to become concentrated in a single, 1/W.E. Beckel, Varsity Graduate, Summer 1967, p.63 2/Post Secondary Education in Ontario, 1962-1970, Report of the Committee of Presidents of Provincially-Assisted Universities of Ontario (University of Toronto Bookstores, 1962, revised 1963) 3/University Television, Supplementary Report of the Committee of Presidents of Provincially-Assisted Universities of Ontario (University of Toronto Bookstores, 1965)

xvi/ Introduction bold (some have said foolhardy) experiment: a TV college at the University of Toronto. Scarborough was one of the two new colleges proposed for the University of Toronto in the 1962 report. Scarborough College and Erindale College, at the other end of the city, were expected to enrol 5,000 students each by 1972-3. The first report of the University of Toronto Off-Campus Colleges Committee, in 1963, hardly mentions television. 4 It notes merely that closed-circuit television should be one of the modem audiovisual aids available, especially 'for science demonstrations.' Certainly this was no different from the use of television on the downtown campus. By September 1964, however, a substantial 'Budget for Scarborough College Special Teaching Facilities' had been drawn up. Thus, sometime between the 1963 and 1964 documents, the critical decision was made to commit Scarborough heavily to a new use of instructional television ( new in Ontario, at least) . Through the means of videotaped lectures it was hoped that the shortage of teaching staff could be alleviated. The 1964 budget envisioned a fully equipped TV college, ultimately producing and distributing instructional materials to the other campuses of the university ( see table 1). Some have charged that because the university was unable or reluctant to introduce extensive use of television in the conservative, traditionalist downtown departments, the problem of incorporating this educational innovation was exported to the new suburban college. An alternative explanation is perhaps more probable: that an opportunity had finally arisen for individuals in the university, who were keenly interested in instructional television in higher education, to implement their ideas. The predicted shortage of teaching staff, and the construction of a geographically independent and modem college, provided the rationale and opportunity to test instructional television on a large scale with a new student body and a 'new' faculty. The essence of the rationale appears in University Television: 5 It seems clear from the first report of the Committee of Presidents [1962] that there will develop in Canada in the next few years a critical shortage of instructors who are highly qualified by experience and background. In the opinion of your sub-committee this is probably the most urgent reason for branching out into television as a method of teaching ... Televised lectures may solve sudden shortages of highly qualified or specialized staff ... 4/'Provisional Plan for Two Off-Campus Colleges,' University of Toronto, 1963 5 I University Television, pp.13 ,25

Introduction/ xvii TABLE 1 Excerpt from the September 1964 Proposed Budget for Scarborough Television Facilities, Showing Intended Expansion to University Distribution and Public Broadcasting Capital Expenditure for Special Teaching Facilities Plan I

Plano Planm Plan IV Plan v Plan VI Plan

VD

General electronic equipment, studios 2 to 6; VTR; telecine master control and distribution lecture theatres for Phase 1; videotape Equipping the large Studio 1 and adding to existing facilities Extending the distribution and classroom equipment for the building extension, Phase o Addition of three new small studios, 7 to 9, and the additional equipment in master control Addition of a mobile van with two cameras Two-way microwave link with St George Campus and Erindale Two-way microwave link with a television network for university-wide broadcasting

Total capital expenditure if all plans were put into effect

$ 779,500 483,500 354,400 272,500 209,000 264,000 85,000

$2,447,900

The sub-committee producing this report was chaired by Dr D.C. Williams, the University's Vice-President for Off-Campus Colleges and one of the key individuals responsible for planning Scarborough. He had long been interested in the effectiveness of television in teaching and had reported on it as far back as 1957.6 Another early planner of the college was Dr William Beckel, who became the first dean. He had experience with television teaching and was extremely effective in using it. The then Minister of Education, William Davis, had shown a consistent interest in educational innovation, particularly television, and was no doubt willing to listen to proposals for a TV college. The ETV Branch of the Department of Education, which was established in July 1966 was already in the planning stage in 1964-5.7 Harry K. Davis, an electronics 6/D.C. Williams et al., 'Mass Media, Learning and Retention,' Canadian Journal of Psychology, vol 11, 1957, pp.157-63 7 /The ETV Branch ( also called ETVO) is now the Ontario Educational Communications Authority (OECA), a Crown agency which operates Channel 19, Toronto. META, the Metropolitan Educational Television Association of Toronto, also referred to in this report, was a non-governmental voluntary agency supported by educational institutions and organizations.

xviii/ Introduction

engineer and personal acquaintance of Dr Beckel, enthusiastically produced a technical proposal for the new college. Dr Lew Miller, with seven years' experience in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was another early planner in favour of the use of television. As has since been observed, the introduction of television at Scarborough was a case of 'all accelerators and no brakes,' in terms both of social conditions and of the individuals those conditions threw together. Interest in the medium of television was peaking in the early sixties. Television sets had become more numerous than telephones or bathtubs in Canadian homes. It was the time for discussing 'the medium is the message,' with the publication of Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media. The political power of television had been demonstrated in the Kennedy election, its emotional impact by the Kennedy assassination. The decision to go all-out for television at Scarborough reflected a general tendency among North American governments to believe that 'crash programs' could solve urgent social problems. Much less attention was paid to the slower process by which human values and attitudes are changed. Generous budgets and emergency plans might raise new buildings almost overnight and equip them with new technologies, but the attitudes of students and professors could not be altered so fast or so arbitrarily. Those who studied the expected impact of television on higher education were aware of these problems. University Television clearly distinguished between the quantitative and qualitative effects of television. The committee noted that qualitative improvements effected by television were 'generally accepted by the academic community' but they also noted: 8 The quantitative principle finds its most obvious applications where very large classes must be handled in sections, and where television can eliminate the need for repetition or duplication of lectures ... However ... the quantitative principle ... arouses deep reservations.

But it was the quantitative use of television which dazzled the planners of Scarborough. Their early pronouncements emphasized not the enrichment of educational experience, but the economic benefits to be ·gained by substituting televised materials for live teachers. Expectations were for savings of 'a million dollars a year' once the college reached full enrolment. 9 It was believed that the use of television would enable a 30 per 8/University Television, introduction 9/The Toronto Globe and Mail, 8 September 1967 (see also p.5)

Introduction / xix cent reduction of staff below the norm of other colleges similar in size and programs. 10 Later correspondence between the provincial government and the college would describe the television installation as 'experimental,' but few of the cautions and controls of an experimental approach were evident in the early planning. Instead, an elaborate and comprehensive facility was constructed, although the final phases were not undertaken. The fascination with sheer electronic gadgetry endemic to our society is evident in the descriptions of the new college by its early planners. 10/lbid., 21 December 1964 (see also p.5)

Test Pattern

1 A TV COLLEGE IN THEORY

The television facilities for Phase One ( the first buildings) of Scarborough College1 were budgeted at $1,263,000 in capital expenditure for electronic hardware,2 including equipment for the major production facility, Studio 1. The actual cost was slightly lower, at $1,229,500.3 The building to house the television studios was budgeted at 6,000 square feet at $35 a square foot. 4 It was expected that these facilities would meet the college's needs for several years, after which - as enrolment approached the projected 5,000-student level with the completion of Phase Two of the college building plans - television facilities in the new buildings and the addition of three small studies would require further expenditures. These would bring the total cost of television facilities .in Scarborough College to $2,149,500. 6 In other words, the decision to make Scarborough College the first major teaching institution in Ontario to rely heavily on television called for a $2 million capital investment decision. Three-quarters of this projected sum was actually spent. From the opening of the college to the end of the 1969-70 academic year, another three-quarters of a million dollars had been spent on operating the television facilities.6 These large sums provoked controversial discussion about the value received. In this chap1/Scarborough College plans called for the construction of the present buildings as a first step, to be followed in two years by additions including a library and all the academic facilities which would be required to support an enrolment of 5,000. To 1971, only a small 'portable' area had been added to Phase One, and the college has been frozen at an enrolment below 2,000. 2/'Budget for Scarborough College Special Teaching Facilities,' September 1964, p.1 3/W.E. Beckel, 'An Economic Analysis ot the Cost of Television Teaching,' January 1968, appendix 2 4/W.E. Beckel, 'Television at Scarborough' (Letter to the President of the University of Toronto, 1966), appendix 5/'Budget for Scarborough College Special Teaching Facilities,' p.1 6/Operating costs during the years 1966-7, 1967-8 and 1968-9 were over $200,000 each year. In 1969 a layoff of staff and cutback in production reduced

4 / Test Pattern

ter the expected economic and educational advantages of television will be outlined. In the early sixties the University of Toronto still divided its undergraduate studies into Honours and General Programs. The Honours Programs enabled students with good academic standing to specialize in a chosen field over four years. For example, in Honours Sociology the undergraduate was required to complete a compulsory introductory course and several later courses thought essential, in such subjects as research methods and theory. In addition, he had to complete a stated number of other sociology courses which he was free to select from a large number of offerings. To ensure that the Honours Sociology graduate also had a reasonable knowledge of related fields, he was required to select a number of options from among courses considered by the Sociology Department to be relevant to sociology, though offered in other departments. The General Programs, on the other hand, were designed to produce a more or less 'rounded' or 'liberal arts' education in three years. Fairly or not, they had the reputation of attracting the less ambitious and less academically outstanding students. In the first year of either General Arts or General Sciences, the choice of courses was severely limited, and even in the upper years, options were fewer than in Honours. Curriculum planning for General Programs was less complicated than for Honours, since course enrolments were predictable from total enrolment, and not susceptible to changing fashions of student choice of options. Scarborough College was intended, at least in its early years, to teach only the General Programs in Arts and Sciences. The fact that there would be no Honours students in the college risked the labelling of Scarborough as academically inferior to the downtown colleges. Hence the frequent emphasis in early descriptions of the college that it was intended to specialize in the 'superior teaching' of the General Programs. Presumably the faculty, undistracted by invidious comparisons between Honours courses and General courses, would devote greater attention and ingenuity to the more excellent teaching of a 'liberal arts' curriculum. Set in the ravined and wooded splendour of a suburban site, Scarborough College offered the General Program students a novel academic experience. The building was ultra-modem, and had attracted much attention by its unusual architecture. The faculty were mostly young men, annual operating costs substantially. All cost data in this chapter must be approximate because the television facilities have, at various times, included a graphics department (now separate), computer costs, and so forth.

A TV College in Theory/ 5 relatively new to teaching and likely to innovate. Most important, the college was devoted to undergraduate education, hopefully avoiding the second-class status frequently attributed to undergraduates whenever graduate students are available to absorb the professor's best efforts and favour. Courses of the General Programs at Scarborough were expected to produce very large classes when the college reached its intended 5,000student enrolment. By 1972 there would be as many as 1,200 students taking first-year English and first-year French, 1,000 taking each of firstyear zoology, botany, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and psychology, and 500 taking each of first-year economics, political science, sociology, andhistory. 7 These massive concentrations of students provided an ideal application for the technology of television teaching. Lectures could be prepared in advance and recorded on videotape, to be replayed during the academic year in lecture theatres holding about 200 students at a time. This would eliminate the need for enough faculty members to deliver the same content to several classes in a course, or the need for one professor to lecture to a class of 500 to 1,000 students. Since the content of these large introductory courses did not change substantially from year to year, the same tapes with slight revisions could be replayed for several years. This arrangement was expected to allow for 30 per cent fewer teaching staff than a comparable 'live' system would need to handle the same number of students. 8 Not only would teaching salaries be saved, but also the office space for these teachers. The secretaries, cleaners, and other support staff required by teachers would also not be needed. These savings would pay both the capital and operating costs of television facilities and would produce a surplus over the comparable cost of 'live' instruction of about $1 million a year, when the 5,000-enrolment was reached. 9 Television facilities in the college were expected to produce numerous other benefits in addition to the economic savings. For example, laboratories were designed for twenty students rather than for one hundred. Demonstrations were to be conducted in a lab-studio before a television camera and carried by cable to the numerous small laboratories, so that each student would get a closer view of the demonstration than he would in even the front row of a large laboratory. Elaborate demonstrations 1 /The Varsity Graduate, Summer 1967, p.64 8/The Toronto Globe and Mail, 21 December 1964 (see also p.9 ff.) 9/This claim, often reported in the press, was based on calculations which are discussed in this chapter, p.9 ff.

6 I Test Pattern

could be videotaped, eliminating costly repetitions for each class and for successive years. The professor would be freed to move about among his students at their benches. The studios would be capable of broadcast-quality productions. Special programs of lasting value and general interest could be produced and distributed to other ,p arts of the university and to other universities. Scarborough was planned as a TV college in a way which at that time was original in North America. Television was not added to an existing structure and program as a modernizing alteration; rather, it was built into the very fabric, both physical and educational, of the college. The size and number of laboratories and classrooms, the ratio of faculty to students, the 'mix' of positions within the faculty between professors and instructors, the office space available for the teaching and support staffs, the overall capital and operating budgets, and many other factors of college structure and life, all flowed out of the decision to rely heavily on instructional television. Fifty per cent of the total teaching program was built around television. 10 Disengaging the college from its initial commitment to television could only be done at the cost of a painful wrenching apart of an integrated system. The human economics of instructional television at Scarborough were planned for a 'factor of three' in the amount of time and effort required. 11 A professor would initially invest three times as many hours in the preparation and production of videotaped lectures as would be needed for the preparation and delivery of the same material 'live' in the lecture hall. This initial investment would be recovered by replaying the tapes over a period of three years. During these years the professorproducer would receive his regular salary, but the taped lectures would be counted as part of his teaching load. Thus he would have free time while the tapes were 'teaching his students.' Since televised lectures could be replayed to several classes simultaneously in different lecture theatres, the number of students taught by one professor could be much larger than with 'live' lectures. However, the professor was to be assigned enough teaching assistants to run seminars and mark essays and examinations under his supervision. The net result would be that over a three-year period the professor would work no harder than if all his teaching were done 'live.' 10/W.E. Beckel, address on educational television to the Committee on Broadcasting, University of Alberta, October 1966, p.l 11 /Beckel, Television at Scarborough,' p.2

A TV College in Theory I 1

In return for his concentrated efforts in producing the videotapes, the professor would be rewarded with large blocks of free time, presumably to be devoted to the pursuit of his research interests. He would be expected to revise lecture tapes which became obsolete, but this was not expected to exceed 10 per cent of the total lectures in any one year. 12 Oddly enough, the human economics of this theory were not pursued beyond the first round of lecture tapes. At one college meeting it was suggested that at the end of the three years the whole series would be made over. Since the professor would then be much more competent in instructional television, he would probably require only twice as many hours of preparation and studio time than if he gave the lectures live. Would he still get a factor of three in recovering this invested time? Or would the lectures be replayed for only two years and then be made again? These questions never seem to have been explored. 13 The factor of three meant that the televised lectures made at Scarborough would either be no better than could be produced by a professor investing only three times as many hours of preparation as in his live lectures, or they would be a losing proposition for the professor who realized that high-quality televised lectures in his course required more than three times as much work as live teaching. The occasional professor with a 'Tv-star' personality could walk into the studio with little additional preparation and talk easily and continuously to the camera for forty-five minutes with few delays or rehearsals. For him a factor of three seemed a generous arrangement. Unfortunately most Scarborough teachers would not find television so easily mastered. Some found a factor of ten a more realistic estimate. They would have to sacrifice much of their research and free time or compromise on televised programs they knew were of poor quality. The college could not afford to adjust the factor of three. It was vital to the proposal that instructional television be an economically rational investment. Two detailed arguments demonstrate this. The first argument compared the teaching of English 100 ( a compulsory subject with a very large enrolment) as taught on the St George campus and, in theory, at a fully operative Scarborough College. The argument ran as follows: 14 1,500 students in English 100 on the St 12/'Verbatim report of a college meeting to discuss the report of the Commission on Television Legal Questions,' 21 April 1966, p.10 13/lbid., p.14 14/Beckel, 'Television at Scarborough,' p.3

8 / Test Pattern

George campus would usually be divided into thirty classes of fifty students. Thirty professors would each take one class as half their teaching load, meeting each class three times a week for two lectures and one discussion group ( still with fifty students in the room) . The cost would be half the salary of each professor, or $5,000 each, a total salary cost of $150,000. When Scarborough College reached 5,000 students and had 1,500 taking English 100, they would be taught as follows. One professor, the best and most enthusiastic teacher available, would make a series of videotaped lectures. Since one really good teacher was easier to find than thirty good teachers, every one of the 1,500 students would benefit by this higher quality of teaching. The students would attend classes in 200seat lecture theatres, but the number of monitors scattered through the room would provide every student with better visual and spoken delivery than any but students in the front rows would get in a fifty-seat classroom. Then each student would attend a small seminar of fifteen for a more personal discussion of his work than could be achieved in a discussion group of fifty students. The one professor making the tapes would be paid on the basis of half his teaching load for each of the three years that the tapes were played, that is $5,000 a year. The studio production cost of the tapes was estimated at $16,500 for about forty-five lectures, or a cost of $5,500 per year when spread over three years. Fifteen hundred students meeting in seminars of fifteen would require one hundred contact hours in teaching assistance. Each assistant would take three hours a week. Thirty-three assistants at $2,000 a year each would cost $66,000 a year. Thus the total Scarborough cost per year for a superior educational experience for 1,500 freshmen English students would be $5,000 plus $5,500 plus $66,000 - a total of only $76,500. This was just over half the operating cost of the St George campus system. The argument did not stop here. Thirty professors would need much more office space than one professor and thirty-three assistants, since the latter would be graduate students coming to the college only a few hours a week. Thirty professorial offices would require much more maintenance, support staff, administration, and so forth than one office. The savings gained through the elimination of these costs would more than pay for the capital cost of television in the college. The rapidly expanding graduate school of the university would provide the required teaching assistants. Scarborough was also expected to have a large enrolment in its exten-

A TV College in Theory I 9

sion courses: the same tapes could often be used in evening classes - an added saving. In science subjects, where television would also be used for laboratory demonstrations, even greater savings would be possible than in arts courses like English, where relatively little equipment and few supplies are required for teaching. The second argument used total sums rather than the cost of any single course. 111 This argument was presented in much greater detail in the original document than is useful here. It took into consideration the capital costs of the building and equipment required for television, the amortization costs, interest on capital, and depreciation of the equipment over ten years and of the building over fifty years. In short, it was a sophisticated financial argument. These calculations produced an estimated television capital and operating cost per annum of $642,200 when the facilities were complete and in use for 5,000 students. Needless to say, this level has never been reached and actual capital and operating costs have been substantially less. With 5,000 students enrolled, it was estimated that the use of instructional television in all large first-year classes would produce a saving of eighty-two teaching positions. The document set out the number and ranks expected to be saved in each discipline. 16 Forty-three of these positions would have been in the sciences and would have required research equipment and facilities. The total salaries of the eighty-two unneeded teachers, the capital costs of their office space, research space, and facilities, the operating costs of maintenance and support staff, and the interest on capital saved all worked out to a total annual cost of $1,621,750. Thus, at the 5,000-student level the college would be saving the difference between the $1,621,750 required for 'live' teaching and $642,200 for instructional television in large classes, that is, about $1 million a year. Along with this economic advantage, students would ·get lectures from the 'best' professors, seminars of fifteen instead of fifty students and twenty-man labs instead of hundred-man labs. Professors would work no harder, could be ill without students missing classes, or could take sabbatical leave during one of the replay years without the difficulty of finding a temporary replacement. The economic argument outlined above also contained estimates for the comparative costs of televised and live teaching before the college reached its 5,000-student goal. With 3,500 students, it was estimated, the televised lectures would save $240,000 annually. With 1,500 students, IS/Beckel, 'An Economic Analysis,' pp.2-8 16/lbid., p.3

10 / Test Pattern TABLE 2 Enrolment at Scarborough College as of December 1 Each Year

1965-6 1966-7 1967-8 1968-9 1969-70 1970-1

1st Year

2nd Year

191 360

134

525

780 918

558

255

417

550

669

3rd Year

108

211

364 479

Total 191 494

888

1,408 1,832 1,706

television would cost $70,000 more than live lectures.17 Thus it was important that the college rapidly advance to at least the 2,500-student level, the break-even point. However, this level has never been reached. The college enrolment each year since its opening is shown in table 2. When the college approached the 1,500-student level in the 1968-9 academic year, the operation and production costs of television were approximately $230,000. It was argued in council meetings that this sum could have hired twenty more professors to teach forty more courses, had the college not been 'saddled with television.' This argument was never presented in detail. It ignored considerations of capital costs on both sides, as well as the question of the nine courses, with enrolments totalling 2,000 students, which were at that time being taught using television and which would have required quite a few more professors to be taught live. 18 It also ignored the question of what would be done with the science program if there were no television in the laboratories : in that year 1,200 students received 215 televised demonstrations in eight courses. 19 The college simply never reached the level of enrolment at which television might have fulfilled the original expectations, at least in relation to financial balance sheets. The economic arguments all depended on the continuation of the General Programs in Arts and Sciences and the large first-year enrolments these programs generated. The General Programs were, however, replaced in 1969-70 by the New Program, which allows students to combine almost any choice of subjects, within a few general limitations. The New Program reduced the predictability of large classes since the 'latest 17 /Ibid., appendix 2 18/H.K. Davis, 'Educational Resources Uses at Scarborough College' (Letter to Principal Plumptre, 28 October 1968), exhibit B, table A 19/lbid., exhibit B, table B

A TV College in Theory I 11

fashion' in student preferences varies from year to year. Limitation of over-enrolment in courses is possible but there is little assurance that any course will have at least the minimum enrolment necessary to make televised instruction economical. At first it was expected that the New Program would not entirely disrupt the college's intended use of television because videotaped lectures would make it possible for students to select a wider range of options for study than would be possible with all-live lectures. Timetable clashes would be reduced. Tapes, once made, could be replayed much more easily than professors could be persuaded to deliver the same lecture at several different hours for the convenience of students. However, the cost of making the tapes could now be recovered only if they were also used for classes on the St George and Erindale campuses.20 This in turn would require an expenditure of hundreds of thousands of dollars on routing and monitor systems. The argument already referred to, that television would provide students with superior instruction while not adding to the burden of the teachers, rested on the assumption that professors could be found in sufficient numbers, willing and able to produce televised lectures for the college. Willingness could be replaced, of course, by coercion, but only at the eventual cost of rebellion. Coercion was used. Though it was frequently tempered with charm, it was resented and long remembered by those who were coerced. The context of coercion is well expressed by a statement made at the time. 21 Programming starts with the teacher. First you have to convince him to use television. That's easy. The choice is using television, or giving his lecture five times a week, or resigning. But if you're going to take that arrogant attitude with a man of real worth you must also show him that what he will do on television is intellectually rewarding for him and for the students and you must not require him to spend more time on the average teaching by television to 500 students than he would have spent teaching face to face to 100 students.

It was hoped that the college would attract young professors who were especially interested in experimenting with the medium of television in teaching. Indeed, a certain number of such teachers did come. However, the college administration had little control over the actual selection of teaching staff, and thus could not insist on willingness to use television as a criterion for appointment. As the documents of the President's Advisory 20/Beckel, 'An Economic Analysis,' p.8 21/Beckel, address on educational television, p.2

12 / Test Pattern Committee on the Future of Scarborough College have indicated, the departments of the university did not always take only the best interests of the college into account when appointing staff. 22 In some cases, it is quite apparent that the question of using television was never raised with the appointee, as he wasn't even informed that the facilities existed! (See chapter4.) Apparently the lack of control over the appointment of pro-television teachers did not trouble the administration. Or if it did, any concern was supplanted by the conviction, held with the tenacity of a true believer, that most professors could be converted to the use of television. 23 Once exposed to good TV production, where techniques are suggested, not dictated, the professor is hooked. Then his imagination is coupled with that of the production staff with remarkable results.

As is often the case with the true believer, the enthusiasm of the conversion argument was backed up by a kind of historical determinism: 24 I would predict right now, knowing something of the present generation of staff and students, that they will generally be against TV. I have assumed that we no longer can afford this attitude in modem 20th century technologically oriented society ...

The conversion of the college academics to the use of instructional television was given a good deal of attention, even before the college was built. The professors already appointed in early 1965, as well as the vice-president for off-campus colleges, Dr D.C. Williams, and the principal, dean, and registrar, all participated in a series of educational television programs produced by the college at CFTO (Channel 9, Toronto). These were made for public broadcast, and most were favourably evaluated by the station in its assessment of audience reaction.26 We wanted to demonstrate that any professor, with assistance, could give good education on TV. We have demonstrated this to our satisfaction. 22/John Colman, 'Why the Review Became Necessary, a Personal Statement' (Document ru.5, President's Advisory Committee on the Future of Scarborough College, September 1970), p.3 ff 23/W.E. Beckel, 'Television Teaching at Scarborough College' (Letter to the Acting President of the University of Toronto, May 1968), p.4 24/lbid., p.2 25/D.C. Williams, 'Progress Report on Closed-Circuit TV at Scarborough College, 1965-66,' February 1966, p.1

A TV College in Theory I 13

The first students were welcomed with a televised program at the opening of the college in the old biology and engineering buildings on the St George campus. Laboratory talks and demonstrations were produced during the first academic term, and three formal series of lectures were scripted in the first session.26 The future of television looked bright when the new building was opened in 1966. The successful series of thirty-nine programs made at CFTO should not have been taken so readily as proof that any professor could use television. Of course, criticism is easy with the advantage of hindsight. Yet if at the time the college administration had taken a more critical attitude to instructional television, they might have considered that each of the professors involved in the CFTO venture made only a very small number of programs. Each had the assistance of an experienced, professional television production staff at a station which bad been operating for years. Much work and attention were lavished on the programs to ensure their success. After all, they were a direct challenge to a very successful series on the rival CBC-TV station, 'The Nature of Things.' 27 Both the professors involved and the whole issue of instructional television were more or less on trial. These programs were far better than the same number of programs which could be produced with the time and resources available in the untried Scarborough studios with a newly assembled technical staff and no immediate stake in audience reception. In summary, Scarborough was launched as a TV college on a theory which assumed major economic savings, the continuation of the General Programs, the 'proven' success of instructional television, and the willingness of faculty to use it. These elements were cemented by a conviction on the part of the administration which rationalized the use of coercion and supported an inflated optimism. 26/lbid., p.2 21 /Canadian Broadcaster, 11 March 1966

2 A TV COLLEGE IN PRACTICE

By 1964, the year that Scarborough College was committed to instructional television, the results of more than 350 'scientific' studies were already on record comparing television teaching with other methods. The Institute for Communications Research of Stanford University had summarized these studies. 1 The general conclusion was one of 'no significant difference' in the performance of students on various tests conducted after comparable televised lectures, live lectures, seminars, and other types of teaching. It was reported in February 1965 that2 The Ford Foundation and the United States Office of Education decided not to appropriate any further funds for television learning research on the basis that it has now been proved that at least a comparable degree of learning can be accomplished through televised teaching ...

University Television, a report by the Committee of Presidents of Ontario Universities, took note in June 1965 of the opinion that the case for instructional television was considered 'proven.' 3 The report carefully avoided an uncritical acceptance of this opinion but, after reflecting on the pros and cons, it concluded that: 4 Thanks largely to American ingenuity and vigour, basic research on the relative efficacy of television and direct instruction may be regarded as virtually complete. The 'no difference' findings are consistent and persuasive. 1/D.W. MacLennan and J.C. Reid, Abstracts on Research on Instructional Television and Film: An Annotated Bibliography (Institute for Communications Research, Stanford University,1964) 2/J.C. Paltridge, 'How to Plan Where and When to Use TV,' College and Busines1 Review, February 1965 3/University Television, Supplementary Report of the Committee of Presidents of Provincially-Assisted Universities of Ontario (University of Toronto Bookstores, 1965) 4/lbid., p.11

A TV College in Practice/ 15

Thus it is not surprising that the early planners of Scarborough College did not conduct any serious research into the pedagogical effects of television. They hired a professional engineer, H.K. Davis, to consult the experience of other universities in the physical and electronic planning of the new college's television facilities. The result was an installation which, while far from perfect, is certainly one of the most impressive in any university on the continent. The production facilities meet professional broadcast standards in monochrome television production. The college planners apparently assumed that it was not necessary to parallel the professional physical engineering of the new television facilities with expert social engineering to guide the introduction of television into the teaching life of the college. Frequently during recent decades, studies of major problems in modem society have concluded that a remarkable hiatus exists between our readiness to engineer technological innovations and our reluctance to consider and plan for the resulting social impacts. It is especially ironic that this error was not avoided at the very university where a world-famous commentator on the social effects of television had already established his reputation.5 Up to the present time, to the author's knowledge, there has been only one significant and comprehensive study of the social problems attendant on the introduction of instructional television to a university environment. 6 The conclusions of this study were available in 1964 if Scarborough's planners had recognized the need for critical analysis of the social impact of their proposed innovation. University Television came too late to bring a reversal in the Scarborough College commitment to television, even if the planners had recognized the warning hidden in one of the report's conclusions: 7 Research on student attitudes is incomplete. The generally favourable or neutral attitudes reported are based on student bodies whose experience of instructional television is limited to a very small part of their total instruction. This is, then, a fruitful field for Canadian research as television is progressively more widely used. 5/Marshall McLuhan became Director of the University of Toronto's Centre for Culture and Technology in 1963. 6/Richard I. Evans, Resistance to Innovation in Higher Education (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1968). The first publication of the material in this book appeared under the title 'The University Faculty and Educational Television: Hostility, Resistance and Change,' in J.W. Brown and J.W. Thornton, New Media in Higher Education (Washington: Association for Higher Education, 1963) 7 I University Television, p.8

16 / Test Pattern Scarborough planners did not propose to conduct such research. Rather, they proposed to subject a large number of students to a total immersion experience of television in compulsory freshman courses. The college position was that 'ample research has demonstrated that TV teaching is as effective or more effective than conventional teaching - our approach [was] to adequately use television, not to spend time and money testing it.' 8 This conviction was probably essential to the provincial government's decision to spend several million dollars on a TV college. Had the officials concerned considered the outlay an 'experiment' with perhaps a fifty-fifty chance of success, it is doubtful that they would have approved an experiment on such a large scale. In effect, the Department of Education and the university administration chose to ignore the possibility that instructional television, which showed no significant difference when used on a small scale, might show some very important differences when it became a major portion of the student's classroom experience. Ontario was not alone in this failing, of course. The same mistake was made in several American universities, and in recent years studies of instructional television experience in the United States have become much less enthusiastic than was the case in the early sixties. (For example, see the works of Schramm and Evans.) What made Scarborough distinctive was the fact that it was planned as a total unit, from the beginning, with television instruction in mind, while American university experiments with television all involved the adaptation of the media by an alreadyexisting institution with an established curriculum. The Hawthorne effect, by which persons involved in a social experiment will initially show a favourable response just because they are involved in something new, has been known to social scientists for four decades.9 Apparently no one connected with the decision to commit Scarborough College to television asked what would be done when the Hawthorne effect wore off at the college, and a willingness to 'give TV a try' 10 was replaced by an urge to be freed from any commitment to it. As Kumata points out: 11 8/W.E. Beckel, 'Television Teaching at Scarborough College' (Letter to the Acting President of the University of Toronto, May 1968), p.1 9 /The term Hawthorne effect originated with the study by E. Mayo of the Western Electric Company Hawthorne Works, 1927, and refers to the phenomenon that persons involved in a social experiment will frequently show a favourable response to almost any innovation when it is first made, as a result of their interest in novelty and pleasure at having been selected for involvement in the study 10 /See 'The Abbey Study,' pp.28-9 of this report. 11/Hidega Kumata, 'A Decade of Teaching by Television,' in W. Schramm, ed., The Impact of Educational Television (University of I11inois, 1960)

A TV College in Practice/ 11 Where TV transmission may have a definite effect is in the possible increased attention on the part of students because of the novelty of the situation ... TV students did less well than conventionally taught students in the second semester of a year-long sequence where no difference was found in the first semester.

This probable outcome could have been predicted by the college planners had they consulted the literature on innovations in education. As Richard Evans observed in his study of television in a university: 12 Considerable evidence indicates that the nearly revolutionary changes in our educational system lack planning, integration, and most of all, evaluation. Many changes are adopted only temporarily, to be discarded later. This freqently results in a return to the old tried-and-true methods. The net change in innovations actually integrated into the educational system is small, and the tempo of the change process remains quite slow.

The truly significant difference affecting the fate of television at Scarborough, at least in its early years, probably depended on the reaction of faculty even more than that of students. If large doses of televised lectures produced no significant ditierence in student grades, and if student feelings about television could be ignored ( as student attitudes were successfully ignored in many other areas), the college still had to deal with the impact of television on the teaching role. It was already well known that the major resistance to television in colleges came from faculty. 13 However, as indicated in chapter 1, the conviction existed that faculty attitudes could be changed and moulded in order to make the new medium successful. This optimistic outlook largely ignored the fact that there was already in motion in North America a massive social drift away from the methods of education upon which televised lecturing depended. The Berkeley revolt (September-January 1964-5) was but the first portent of the new wave of opinions and emotions about university education which would sweep away numerous formal examinations, compulsory subjects, honour programs, faculty-controlled curricula, and a host of other related aspects of the traditional university. Even the value of the lecture itseH would be questioned. · University Television foresaw some of the changes to come and argued that 'extensive use of television in universities' need not inevitably lead to 'too great a stress on the lecture as a teaching device.' Misuses of tele12/Evans, Resistance to Innovation, p.12 (italics added) 13/University Television, p.8

18 / Test Pattern vision could be prevented 'so long as the uses are controlled by responsible academics.' 14 It concluded that 'the adoption of instructional television depends on the joint consultation of administration and staff .'15 Nevertheless, the report never came to grips with two vital facts: (a) many academics would be precisely the least competent and least willing people to introduce the new and complex technology of instructional television successfully into their customary methods of teaching, and (b) the students, who after all are the TV generation, might have a good deal to say about instructional television. In the multiversities of the seventies, administration and staff would find themselves compelled to include students in their joint consultations. The everyday television experience of young people did not begin to have a substantial effect on university education until the late sixties, when the first students exposed to a steady diet of television from early childhood began to arrive at college. As McLuhan had predicted in 1964, they demanded in their education personal involvement more than intellectual content or 'linear' analysis. 16 Yet the projected use of television in Scarborough College greatly reduced personal involvement, replacing it with several hours a week of programs in which students were lectured at by the professor but had almost no personal contact with him. These students rejected much of the college television fare offered to them because it lacked the production quality and expensive visual stimulation of the commercial television programs. It particularly lacked the invitation to involvement which is built into so much commercial television, but which many academics reject derisively as 'mere entertainment.' Perhaps Scarborough College was simply born ten years too soon. The most recent comparisons of instructional television with other methods of teaching lean toward the conclusion that television is an inferior method when measured by performance on a variety of scales. 17 This trend, if confirmed, would reflect the fact that the subjects in such experiments today are much more critical of television than were students born in 1940 and enrolled in college in 1960. It is doubtful that the quality of instructional television in universities has improved enough to match the rise in audience sophistication and level of expectations. 14/lbid., p.11 15/lbid., p.12 16/Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1964), pp.332-4 17/Kumata, 'A Decade of Teaching by Television,' p.168; see also footnote, p.137, E.W. Bundy's research.

A TV College in Practice I 19 Scarborough planners, like most university teachers, may have assumed that lectures were much more important to the student's learning process than they actually were. University Television warned against this error but as yet few have paid attention. 18 Educators are beginning to argue that students learn in spite of rather than because of any particular method of teaching. 19 Robert Dubin re-analysed the raw data presented in ninety-one comparative studies of teaching methods carried out over the past forty years. His conclusion was that20 These data demonstrate clearly and unequivocally that there is no measurable difference among truly distinctive methods of college instruction when evaluated by student performance on final examinations. The significant variable, he concludes, is the student's own effort with the material concerned, not the teacher's method of presenting it, and the student's own effort is usually closely tied to textbooks: 21 The single most important common factor probably accounting for the lack of significant difference in teaching methods is the continued reliance on textbooks in most situations, with the student usually relying more on the book to learn than on any method of presentation, while the Professor relies on the text to ask examination questions so as to be 'fair' to everyone. However, examination performance is less and less the concern of today's reform-minded educators. 22 More emphasis is being placed on the development of the student as a whole person rather than as an apprentice in a discipline. Decisions on effective and desirable teaching methods are more likely to be made in terms of the quality of the learning experience than performance in examinations. This emphasis involves a recognition of variations in individual needs of students, and a shift away from the standard courses with standard textbooks and standard examinations designed for the mythical standard student with a standard per capita government grant. C.J. Webb noted this shift in his criticism of overcommitment to instructional television in the university, when he pointed 18/University Television, introduction 19/See Carl Rogers, Freedom to Learn (Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1969) 20/Robert Dubin, The Teaching-Learning Paradox (Center for Advanced Study of Educational Administration, University of Oregon, 1968), p.35 21/Ibid., p.47 22/See, for example, Carl Rogers, Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner, John Holt. George Leonards, and Ivan Illich.

20 / Test Pattern out that the televised lecture is not so much a rival to the live lecturer as to the standard textbook. 23 Alternative uses of television are certainly possible. University Television, for example, envisaged 'a [video]tape library for listening and viewing, which would augment the book library ... the lectures themselves could then be viewed as supplemental to, not the core of, teaching and learning. ' 24 The report also speculated that: 211 Television might well rehabilitate the 'great' lecture, or lecture series. Lectures given week by week as part of a course of study are expository, sometimes imaginative, limited, usually, to taking the class a few steps ahead in an orderly progression ... There is another kind of lecture, more formal, in a way more irresponsible, less related to any particular year's work, which may ... synthesise, expound a fresh insight ... A growing number of professors are coming to realize that the weekby-week lectures may be merely the customary preservation of an obsolete oral tradition predating print, let alone television. Most students can read more rapidly than lectures can be audited. The repetition of lecture content year after year seems an inefficient use of professorial time. What could not be put easily into texts could now be recorded on tape for the student to view in the envisaged videotape library. These proposed uses of television, however, would not replace the instructor but supplement him, freeing him for more personal contact with his students. Such uses of television facilities in a college would increase costs instead of saving money or filling the gap created by a shortage of teaching staff. There are more paradoxes in the Scarborough planners' assumptions about the instructional use of television. Some appear in the argument that television can bring the best teachers to more students. Dean Beckel, for example, defined the 'worthy teacher' in William Arrowsmith's terms: 26 ... an integrated man - one who confronts the student with as many different vivid modes as can be mustered to enable the student to infer the great crucial idea of all education - the single, many-sided transformation of himself ...

It is precisely those qualities of enthusiasm, presence, rapport, or whatever term you might apply to a teacher who comes across as a person, not 23/C.J. Webb, the Toronto Globe and Mail, 14 July 1967, p.7 24/University Television, p.3 25/lbid., p.11 26/W.E. Beckel, 'The Fallacy of Hopkin's Effect,' mimeographed speech (no date),p.3

A TV College in Practice/ 21

merely as an informer, which are least likely to be projected through the dead eye of a television camera to unseen students. The dean later came to realize this: 27 If he's good in the classroom be should be good on television provided that

measure of good isn't all tied up in an entertaining and constant two-way feedback with students. He will miss the student response in the studio.

Teachers do exist who can do this - Dean Beckel himself was highly successful on television in his students' estimation. But how are the less successful teachers to function if one thoroughly applies the logic of 'bringing the really good teachers ... into immediate contact with large numbers of students'?28 One faculty member at Scarborough quite frankly stated in an interview that he is opposed to television in the college because he is not particularly good at it, and has no desire to be replaced by lecture tapes made by some other professor who is good at it. At the other extreme is a professor who is quite happy to use a colleague's taped lectures which he supplements with his own seminars. Reference has already been made earlier in this chapter to the view that many academics were not likely to be competent or willing to use television effectively without considerable training. Some readers may object to this statement. To set the matter in context, it is worth remembering that universities have traditionally shown much less concern for a faculty member's teaching ability than for his publications. Thus the professor's attitude toward instructional television is a part of his larger attitude toward teaching. To obtain a university teaching post a candidate does not need to demonstrate his teaching ability or have it assessed and certified. To hold his post he must ordinarily satisfy his colleagues ( and his students only to the extent that they influence his colleagues) that he is reasonably competent in duplicating the traditional educational experience of which he and his colleagues are products. He does not need to improve this experience radically by constantly updating his teaching methods. In fact, he is likely to be viewed with great suspicion if he moves too far away from the traditional role. An untested and unproven innovation is likely to appeal only to a marginal teacher in the university environment - one who is quite young, or who has come into the teaching role later in life after innovative experience in outside industry or commerce, or who for various reasons is less dependent on 27 /W.E. Beckel, 'Television Teaching,' January 1968, p.4 28/Beckel, 'The Fallacy of Hopkin's Effect,' p.3

22 / Test Pattern his colleagues' esteem, or who has certain venturesome qualities which set him apart as something of an 'anarchist' in his department. 29 Evans found that the professor willing to use television is typically 'less scholarly and academic' in the narrow sense of these words, tends to be more in favour of teacher training for university staff, and more sensitive to student evaluation of his teaching. so There is one important factor which makes Scarborough College teachers less likely than their downtown colleagues to be willing to take the risks involved in developing television skills. They are frequently concerned with being out of the mainstream of activities in their departments, set apart in something of a remote outpost. Publishing becomes even more than normally important, to ensure the attention of the colleagues downtown who decide on promotions. Making ·good television is rarely counted as publishing. Making effective television programs requires that the professor abandon much of his •previous classroom experience and accept the guidance of a non-academic television production staff. The college administration fully realized that: 31 Only a few professors have so far shown the grasp of communication by television to be able to create a truly memorable television production ... we have to start somewhere and so we start at the minimum. To a good television producer it looks awful.

Nevertheless, the administration expected that 'professors will learn to teach at Scarborough, but we don't say this because university professors don't like to think they aren't good teachers .. .' 32 The teacher was assured that in the studio he would be boss right from the beginning despite the fact that half a dozen technically more competent television staff were now involved in his formerly exclusive one-man show. The first method used in the college to transform lectures into television tapes was calculated to disturb the existing teaching methods as little as possible. This method clearly demonstrated that33 ... other things being equal, innovations which are perceived as threats to existing practice rather than mere additions to it are less likely of acceptance; 29/E.M. Rogers, Diffusion of Innovation (New York: Free Press, 1962), p.169 ff. 30/Evans, Resistance to Innovation, p.84 31/Beckel, 'Television Teaching,' p.4 32/W. Plumptre, as reported by the Toronto Telegram, 23 January 1967 33/M.B. Miles, Innovation in Education (New York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964), p.638, cited by Evans, Resistance to Innovation, p.19

A TV College in Practice I 23 more generally innovations which can be added to an existing program without seriously disturbing other parts of it are likely to be adopted.

The method began with a technician audio-taping the live lectures of a professor as delivered in the lecture hall. The tapes were transcribed and the transcript edited by the professor. With the aid of a television producer-director, visual illustrations were incorporated at appropriate points. The producer-director might also suggest means of making the lectures more lively or attention-holding but the professor made the final decision on any such alterations. The final script was prepared for videotaping, and was inscribed on cue cards if the professor desired them. At an appointed hour the professor arrived at the studio to record his lecture. In contrast to the lecture hall where his presence ( or a sharp cough or word of greeting) would command attention from others present, the professor found himself in a studio where he might feel like a performer, no more in command of the situation than an actor on stage is in command of his director. U he insisted on a commanding role, he might easily take on all the unpleasant qualities of the prima donna stereotype. Striking a comfortable position between these two extremes was not easy for most Scarborough teachers. Obviously much of the success of television at Scarborough depended on the role of the producer-director. This person had to be more than technically competent in television production. He or she had to be an interpreter of the new technology to a frequently reluctant and suspicious professor. The 'human relations' work of the television producer-director was vitally important and at the same time, was extremely different from that appropriate in a commercial studio. Working with professional actors, the commercial studio director usually produces a program for which the objectives are clear, the budget ample, and the technicians highly experienced. The commercial studio director is accustomed to giving instructions, not to making carefully polite suggestions; accustomed to rehearsing until the 'take' is right, not to placating an irate professor over unavoidable delays; accustomed to moving through the paces of production without constantly having to explain, excuse, or justify. In the opinion of most of the teachers using television in the early years of the college, the first producer-directors were quite inadequate in interpreting television ( see chapter 4). Only in the past two years have the producer-directors working in the Scarborough studios succeeded in building a bridge between their own technical competence and the professor's

24 / Test Pattern role as a teacher. It must be added, however, that with a few professors the early staff were successful. Also, at least one freelance director employed by the studios won considerable trust and co-operation from the professors with whom he worked. The role of the producer-director as interpreter of television is complicated by the fact that the professor usually believes he has more at stake in producing a videotape than in giving a live lecture. 34 He will be on record for anyone to see and quote. In a live lecture he can always claim he was misunderstood or misquoted by a student. The preparatory work leading up to delivery of a live lecture is not demonstrably evident to the student, though the results may be. In the studio the professor has to expose his preparation or backstage activity to the technical staff, if he is ·going to achieve a successful working rapport with them. On videotape the professor's capacity to use television will be readily apparent to his student audience, and his ordinary teaching weaknesses will frequently be magnified by the searching eye of the camera. Needless to say, the producer-director also has a personal investment in the programs, and he will be the first one to be blamed by a professor whose programs are not given the customary attention and respect: 'They're laughing at me! They're not listening! They're eating their lunches during my tapes!' For some professors the very experience of seeing themselves teach was a traumatic one. The administration might well joke that it was 'good for the soul' and that 'no one has committed suicide yet,' but academics are proverbially a sensitive lot. 35 To see yourself on television and have your self-image shattered does not make one more fond of the new medium: 'Do I look like that? Do I jerk my hand that way all the time? Do I really say "uh" that often?' At first apparently it was believed that almost any professor could use television to teach 36 and, moreover, that use of television would tend to improve poor teaching by forcing the professor to organize his preparation and presentation and by providing him with television assistance. 37 Later this view became somewhat qualified, but it was still argued in 1968: 38 34/J.C. Adams et al., College Teaching by Television (Washington: American Council on Education, 1958), p.55 35/Beckel, 'The Fallacy of Hopkin's Effect,' p.9 36/lbid., p.10 37 /Beckel, 'Television Teaching at Scarborough College,' p.3 38/Beckel, 'Television Teaching,' p.3

A TV College in Practice I 25 If he's bad in the classroom he will be bad on television. He might be worse, he might be better. The television studio at least has the effect of concentrating one's mind on one's work. THE REVOLT AGAINST TELEVISION

The faculty had been using television for only three months in the new building when it became clear that all was not going well. Many faculty members regarded the use of television as an experiment, for they were unwilling to recognize how deeply the college was committed to television. Resentment and anxiety became focussed on the legal questions involved in the production of videotaped lectures ( see appendix 1) . If the minutes of meetings and the recollection of those involved were the only evidence available, the conclusion might be that the major concern of the faculty was their right to control their videotaped lectures in the same way they were accustomed to controlling live lectures. However, the verbatim record of a special meeting of the College Council on this topic has been preserved. 39 This document demonstrates that much more was contested than mere legal questions. The very first comments by a professor express an uneasiness which dominates the mood of the 21,000-word record. Faculty members wanted the opportunity to experiment with television by making pilot tapes, assessing the effect in the classroom, and then, if the professor chose, erasing the tapes and not using television. In short, they wanted to avoid making a commitment to television in advance, in a particular sub;ect, when the college had already made a general commitment to using television on a large scale in as many subjects as possible. Again and again, interviews with faculty members revealed evidence of this head-on clash between the resistance of a professor to 'playing with the new toy,' as many saw it, and the insistence of the administration that he must, or have his teaching load increased, or suffer some other fate. At the 1966 meeting there was concern that using television involved much more work for the professor than conventional teaching. There was concern that television tapes would replace the individual professor or at least make him less necessary, and so weaken his economic bargaining position with the administration. Moreover, if a professor made a series 39/'Verbatim report of a college meeting to discuss the report of the Committee on Television Legal Questions,' 21 April 1966

26 / Test Pattern of tapes which turned out to be ineffective, and he returned to live teaching, how would he recoup the time and effort invested in the aborted tapes? Since large number of students could be handled by fewer instructors using television, was it the intention of the administration to keep the teaching staff as small as possible by this means? Answers to these questions were stated at the meeting in terms of (a) the college's economic commitment to television, (b) the necessity to use television tapes for several years if they were to pay off, even if the professor disliked the tapes after seeing their effect on students, and ( c) the role of television in closing the gap between large enrolments and few professors. In reply to the last argument, the position was taken that while some smaller universities might face a staff shortage, Ontario's most prestigious university should always be able to attract as many capable staff as it required. Why hadn't the television experiment been tried at Trent or Brock? The reply was simply that Scarborough had been designed as a large-scale test of closed circuit television teaching. Whether it would work would be known 'in three or four years.' Perhaps what is most startling about the discussion at this meeting is the number of inquiries from professors about the arrangements affecting a professor's use of television, when some professors had already begun making programs and had served an academic year at the college. For example, one question was asked: 'When you make the series and it is given for the next three years, does it count as part of your teaching load, or does it not?' The answer was: 'We have not got the details of this worked out yet,' followed by an 'educated guess' as to how it might work out, based on the factor of three. But the admission also was made: 'Other people say it takes ten times as long. I think we need to have some experience with this.' The College administration was still operating at this level of uncertainty in 1966. Professors were allowed to remain too long uninformed about the integration of instructional television into their teaching roles. The only possible explanation of this situation is that it was a product of the confusions which usually attend crash programs. In its speed and scale of conception, construction, and commitment to television, Scarborough was a hasty response to the crisis foreseen by the Presidents of Ontario Universities in 1962.40 The question of approval of television tapes and of their erasure was 40/Post-Secondary Education in Ontario, 1962-1970, Report of the Committee of Presidents of Provincially-Assisted Universities of Ontario (University of Toronto Bookstores, 1962, revised 1963)

A TV College in Practice/ 21

an important one at the 1966 meeting. Obviously the college could not afford to erase tapes readily and hire new staff to teach live. Even more touchy was the question of privacy of tapes. Some faculty argued that no one but the professor, the essential television staff, and the students in the course concerned should be able to see any tape without the professor's knowledge and permission. This issue emphasized that the faculty still thought of televised lecture tapes as being lectures given in the classroom, but by television rather than in person. The television system was considered to be as private as the telephone system. 41 According to the traditional 'territoriality' of the classroom, there is an unspoken understanding that professors will not sit in on each other's lectures and that no administrator will sit in without advance permission. It was expected that this same arrangement would be extended to a medium which by its nature is much more public than a telephone or an audio tape recorder. Television lecturing actually functions on the same public level as radio or textbooks. However, if professors were to produce videotaped lectures which they would be as willing to show as they would their published works in print, experience showed that they would need more than three times the live-lecture time to make them. · That lectures must be taped, rather than presented live on closed circuit, was argued by the administration on the basis that the tapes could be replayed for several years to recover the cost of the television facilities and reduce the need for staff. Also, tapes could be produced at any time convenient to faculty and television staff, while live closed circuit television would have to be produced to fit scheduled class times. Moreover, each live closed circuit program would require a studio team at the specific time, and so would limit greatly the number of courses simultaneously taught on television. Although ostensibly concerned with legal questions, much of the 1966 meeting was clearly concerned with the defence of a traditional method of teaching against a threatening innovation. At one point, this debate became direct and explicit. One professor, referring to the process of developing a television lecture program with script, visuals, studio rehearsal, and editing, asked: 'How essential is this whole production treatment?' The professor explained that his method of lecturing was 41/A prominent member of the college faculty recently remarked to the author that he viewed the television system in the college as simply 'a facility, like the telephone system.' When asked if this was a seriously considered comparison, he held that it was. The importance of this comparison is the general attitude that telephone conversations are private.

28 / Test Pattern

simply to walk into the classroom and start talking: 'I hardly ever have any lecture notes, just a few words written on a piece of card, and I talk about each one in tum.'42 The reply argued that 'given one or two years' experience we are certainly going to use television in a completely different way from the auditory approach we now use from the front of the room, and if we don't then the experiment is essentially a failure ... If we don't actually modify the message to suit the means, then we really aren't making use of the means. ' 43 Another professor who 'just talked to the class' countered with: 'I feel very strongly that I can continue to give lectures as I have given before except that I will now do it in front of a camera eye instead of students.' This difference in understanding the nature of television was not resolved in this meeting, nor has it been since. THE ABBEY STUDY

The next concrete evidence of faculty attitude toward television teaching came a year later when Dean Beckel asked Professor D.S. Abbey to conduct a study of attitudes of staff and students at the college toward television lectures. The results were submitted in June 1967.44 The report began by noting, as this report has, the great number of studies about television's effect on student performance compared to the few studies on personal attitudes of those involved in the experience. Abbey's study used objective paper-and-pencil tests. A schedule of sixty-four questions or statements about television in the College was completed by fifty-one faculty members, with the respondent replying to each by selecting a number on a scale ranging from 1 ( disagree strongly) to 6 ( agree strongly). Unfortunately, in the opinion of this author, such a method of obtaining information lends itself readily to quantification, so that it is likely to become little more than an elaborate series of statistical inferences. Though the Abbey study also used open-ended questions, the results were given very little space in the report. The quantitative approach, of course, is less open to the charge of biases of interpretation by the researcher. After all, he is merely processing, by mathematical rules, the data supplied to him by the respondents. (Avoidance of statistically 42/Verbatim report, p.43 43/lbid., p.44 44/D.S. Abbey, 'Staff and Student Attitudes to mimeographed, June 1967

ITV

at Scarborough College,'

A TV College in Practice/ 29

sophisticated methods in the present report will no doubt leave this author open to charges of bias. However, such a risk allows this report to remain on as detailed and meaningful a level of data as possible.) The main conclusion of the Abbey study was that the faculty agreed ( at a level of 5. 7 on the scale in which 6 is maximum) with the statement: 'Although its value has not been fully assessed, we should be willing to give television instruction a try.' 45 Ironically, Professor Abbey departed from the statistically demonstrable data to note that in his conversations with Scarborough professors, 'many instructors' negated this statement. He concluded that agreement with the statement in the questionnaire might be 'possible acquiescence to the "expected" response from a university staff member.' 46 This conclusion seems more likely when we consider the fact that the fifty-one faculty also gave a 5.0 agreement rating to the statement, 'Television can facilitate the discovery of new methods of teaching which are particularly effective within one's speciality.'47 The actual, observable behaviour of the great majority of Scarborough faculty certainly does not indicate that this belief in the improvement of teaching by using television was an operative one ( see page 68) . On the negative attitudes toward television, the Abbey results conformed more closely to the observed attitudes of the staff as recorded in meetings, in actual use of the facilities, and in personal discussion. The report indicated quite negative attitudes of the faculty toward the administrative control of television and the role of the television staff. 48 In comparing the attitudes of faculty members who were actually involved in using television to the reactions of those entirely uninvolved, Professor Abbey reported that those using television felt strongly (5.3 on the 1-6 scale) that, 'Television instruction reduces lecturer satisfaction' and also ( 4.1 ) that, 'Teaching by television is far more demanding of time and energy than normal face-to-face teaching.' 49 The major concern expressed by the respondents in open-ended comments was that the legal question, a year after the 1966 meeting, was still not satisfactorily or clearly resolved, and that it had yet to be proven that the investment of time and energy required to make a good television lecture produced any observable payoff in educational benefit. Sixty per cent of the open-ended comments were negative, and the re45//bid., p.4 461/bid., p.5 41//bid. 481/bid. 49//bid., p.6

30 / Test Pattern maining 40 per cent were largely 'non-committal or only slightly positive.'50 These attitudes so severely undermine the spirit necessary to make a success of television in the college that 'let's give it a try' must be interpreted with a great deal of scepticism. Later in 1967 the problem of faculty resentment toward television became severe enough to require the creation of an administrative post, assistant to the dean for television. The occupant was to be responsible for 'liaison between the academic and [television] production staffs' and was to be a 'defender of faculty rights.' 51 The creation of a special college office to protect academic freedom vis-a-vis television succeeded no more than the Dean's Television Committee which preceded it. The assistantship was very much a part-time position, and a source of potential rivalry with the director of educational communications. Potential friction was made more probable by the fact that many faculty regarded the director of educational communications as lacking in sensitivity to academic prerogatives. The first two producerdirectors appointed by the director to supervise studio productions were not regarded with any special warmth by most of the teaching staff who had worked with them. In short, there was no one in the college able and empowered to play the role of interpreter between television and academic freedom, or to bridge the serious personality conflicts between some television staff and some faculty members. As a result, personal anxieties and antagonisms accumulated, and burst forth on several very painfully remembered occasions. The director of the studios worked closely with Dean Beckel, who provided the charm, persuasion, and coercion which pushed academics toward the use of television. As long as Dean Beckel was at the helm, everyone interviewed agreed, a full confrontation between television and teaching staff was avoided. But when the dean resigned in early 1968 to become vice-president of the University of Lethbridge, the lid blew off, or, as one of those very much identified with the dean's policies regretted, 'we lost our leader.' The revolt was triggered by a special film and videotape program unpopularly known in the college as the 'Beckel Special.' This was a collage of selected portions of several regular lecture programs made by faculty members in the courses they taught. The portions were selected by the dean and television staff as favourable illustrations of what could be done with televised teaching. Unfortunately the original 'authors,' SO/Ibid., p.8 51 /Minutes of the Television Commitee at Scarborough College, 19 October 1967

A TV College in Practice I 31 the professors concerned, were neither consulted nor flattered by this use of their productions. They reported that verbal permission had been given for one showing of a complete tape, but had never been given for selections to be made and combined into a program. One professor denied even having given original verbal permission for a limited showing, and was outraged at the impression given by the particular segment of his tape which was used. The special program was shown at conferences in Geneva, Switzerland, and in British Columbia, and on other occasions, and was intended for use in the orientation of freshmen students and new members of the faculty. 52 The professors concerned became aware of the special tape just before these intended in-college showings, and most of them were outraged at the out-of-college showings without their knowledge or approval. By this time Dean Beckel had left. The director of educational communications was now effectively in command of television in the college, since a new dean did not take office for about five months after Dean Becket's departure, and the assistant to the dean for television felt powerless to act. The teaching staff therefore found themselves in confrontation with a director many found difficult to deal with, especially because he was a technician rather than a peer, and in a technology they little understood and had little direct power to affect, save through the cumbersome structure of the college committees and Council. So contentious and personally vituperative did the situation become that the minutes of one meeting have disappeared, and the Television Committee went without a chairman for several months, unable to persuade anyone to take the role. The 'Beckel Special' was destroyed, both the film and videotape versions, and more emphasis was placed on the rules for protection of faculty rights ( see appendix 1). Meanwhile, the New Program of curriculum reform in the university was threatening to undermine the large compulsory first-year classes which originally made television appear economical for Scarborough. The future of television teaching in the college began to look extremely grim. Lay-offs of television staff seemed unavoidable, and staff morale plummetted. To add still more fuel to the fire, a Presidential Advisory Committee, the Porter Commission, was appointed to 'design permanent machinery to encourage and co-ordinate educational television and other media at 52/Memorandum of the Television Committee of Scarborough College, 6 September 1968

32 / Test Pattern the University of Toronto.' No representative to the commission was appointed from Scarborough. The faculty, who felt they had much more experience in instructional television than any other academic constituency of the university, were incensed at this oversight. Principal Plumptre and the new Scarborough Dean, John Colman, intervened with the university administration, and the commission was enlarged to include the principal. The Commission, which had considered its deliberations concluded, held another meeting.53 The Scarborough Television Committee was particularly concerned at 'the apparent absence of a firm guarantee of academic control over television' in the Porter Commission's proposed recommendations. 54 This tragi-comedy of errors within the college and university could have become a disaster ( as some have since labelled it) but for two important factors. First, several persons of considerable patience and wisdom ( if subsequent events are to be taken as proof) became prominent in the activities of the college affecting television. The new dean showed great ability in smoothing ruffled feathers, seeking compromises, and cooling a potentially explosive situation. Among his successes were the necessary but very painful reduction in the permanent television staff due to the shift to the New Program and the declining demand for televised lectures, and the appointment of an academic as director of the television facilities. Although not experienced in the operation of such facilities, the new director, a lecturer in English, had shown great interest in television teaching and a willingness to be innovative in its use. He later became chairman of the Television Committee as well, thus providing for the first time a substantial link between the academics and the television staff. The second factor is both obvious and usually overlooked. It was simply that the television wing, its equipment, and staff existed, and thus ha~ the sheer social force of presence in the college. H the college had been asked in 1969 whether it wanted to acquire television facilities, the most charismatic person could not have persuaded the faculty to buy them or use them. But television was there, built into the plant, the staff-student ratio, the labs and lecture halls, and the courses that already depended on it. Thus it was not surprising to find, parallel to the angry issues in Television Committee minutes, a continuing stream of decisions involving television. The experimental televising of plays in English and the production of special programs in classics may be cited as examples. 53 /Minutes of the Educational Communications Committee of Scarborough College, 24 October 1968, item 4 54/lbid., item 4-1-b

A TV College in Practice/ 33

In addition, at this time the college began to make its television facilities available to outside groups, especially to the Educational Television Branch of the Department of Education and to departments on the St George campus. This eventually led to the establishment by the college of a fund of $75,000. Popularly known as 'seed money,' the fund was intended to promote the use of the facilities by faculty members from the St George campus, thus providing new uses to replace the rapidly declining Scarborough production of televised lectures. The college faculty, incidentally, originally expected that the University of Toronto would eventually finance productions by St George campus staff achieved through the seed money fund, so that the cost would not in the end be borne by the college. 55 This hope did not materialize and once again many members of Scarborough faculty felt the college had been left 'holding the bag' in television. 55/The Minutes of the Educational Communications Committee of the college, 10 June 1969, refer to the sum as a St George allocation to be administered 'in trust' by Scarborough College.

3 THE SCARBOROUGH TELEVISION FACILITIES AND STAFF

When the Educational Television Branch of the Department of Education inspected the Scarborough studios before leasing them for production, they catalogued and assessed the facilities and equipment. The conclusion was that the college had a broadcast plant capability for small and medium type monochrome (black and white) productions, with equipment in service which could be classed as good to excellent.1 The facilities originally included five studios, two of which have since been converted to viewing rooms. Studio 1 is forty-five feet by forty-five feet with elevator access for staging, and is linked with the control and master control areas in such a way that a minimum number of technical staff can produce programs of broadcast standard. For example, master control was designed for one-man operation, whereas several men would be customary in most commercial installations of this size. The costs of using Studio 1 (including maintenance, services, and personnel) are competitive with the very best commercial studios in monochrome production. 2 The routing system ( distribution of playbacks) built into the college permits twelve different programs to be distributed to any of forty-five different teaching areas simultaneously. The system is designed with a high degree of automation and low manpower operating costs. 3 The planners of the college anticipated, with some justice as events proved, that the province's enthusiasm in the early sixties for financial investments in new universities would soon wane. They foresaw that it would become increasingly difficult to get sufficient funds to operate the television facility. Thus is was prudent to build as much investment as possible into I /'Confidential detailed assessment of Scarborough facilities by ETVO, 1969-70' 2/lbid. The document contains confidential comparisons with other suppliers of similar services. 3/H.K. Davis, 'Report of Inventory of Systems and Capabilities, University of Toronto,' 1969, p.28

The Scarborough Television FacilitieJ and Staff/ 35 original capital outlay while funds were available, and keep later operating costs down. H.K. Davis's engineering passion for automation no doubt exceeded the bounds of social realism. For example, remote control boxes were designed to enable a professor in a small studio to control a pre-set camera, audio, slide-projectors, and other equipment, so that no technicians needed to be present once the production was underway. 4 The one-man master control system was designed with the expectation that after several years of production the accumulated catalogue of several hundred taped lectures would be transferred to a playback centre in the new library wing, using one-inch videotape. This new building is still in the planning stage, and as a result, master control became little short of a madhouse during peak periods in the 1968-9 and 1969-70 academic years. Constant demands on playback facilities had to be matched with production demands, as the same facilities had to perform both functions. The number of inevitable errors occurring under such pressure produced more faculty animosity. Lectures were frequently played back in the wrong order, or into the wrong classroom, or not played back at all at the scheduled time. Low morale among the television staff did not help matters. Fortunately for everyone concerned, the number of new productions in 1970 declined, relieving pressure on the system. During the summer of 1970, two full lecture courses were transferred to one-inch tape, to be played back through the existing master control system but freeing the two-inch machines for production use in peak periods. Some facilities were less than optimal. More capital expenditure might profitably have been invested in the large-screen television projectors, for example. The screens are located at the front of the class, and are about eight feet long by six feet high. An enlarged image of the televised picture is projected on the screen, ·giving an effect rather similar to that of a projected 16 mm. film, but with less definition. The large-screen projection was intended to supplement the smaller sets or monitors suspended from the ceiling throughout the lecture room. Poor performance of the largescreen projectors was the most frequent complaint about mechanical operation of the television system, among teaching staff and students alike. The difference in cost between the present projectors and a significantly superior model is of the order of ten to one. Yet paring of costs on this item may have been ill-advised. Though the large-screen image was the direct object of many complaints - that it was frequently distorted and indefinite - the social origin 4/Varsity Graduate, Summer 1967, photograph of 'black box,' p.62

36 / Test Pattern of the complaint is probably a learned response to television in contrast to movies. We are accustomed from movies to viewing a large image at the front of a large audience by looking up to the image at an angle slightly above the horizontal plane. We do not like to look up too much above the plane - the front rows of a cinema are always the least desirable. With television, however, we are accustomed to viewing a relatively small image, at a much closer range, looking down at an angle about twenty degrees below the horizontal plane. We are also accustomed to viewing television in a familiar setting with only a small number of persons present. The arrangement of the Scarborough lecture theatres asked students (unconsciously) to mix these two experiences, without providing the accustomed satisfaction of either. The student could look up at the monitor, with its image no larger than a regular home television set. From some seats, the upward angle of viewing soon became quite uncomfortable, but it had to be maintained in the televised lecture courses for forty to fifty minutes without a break. Alternatively, the student could look forward and down to the large-screen projection, but he usually found the image there too poorly defined. For most students the result was a roaming pattern, with the eyes moving from monitor to large screen to distracting stimuli and back, until eventually the outright failure of some of the largescreen projectors gave viewers no choice but to look up to the monitors. Since most of our daily visual activity is at the horizontal plane or below, whether we are reading, walking, talking, writing, or even eating, the arrangement of television monitors in classrooms so as to require long periods of upward viewing must inevitably create discomfort and dissatisfaction. Another aspect of the original planning which has not worked out well is the lack of independent access to the projection and equipment rooms at the front of the large lecture halls. These can be serviced only when no class is in session, since access is through the classroom. Needless to say, most lecture halls are heavily booked owing to the halt in the college expansion. There is also a severe shortage of rooms with television monitors for classes smaller than fifty students. Early planning also skimped a good deal in the area of set construction and storage. Students were not slow to recognize the same backgrounds in program after program. Sets are presently stored in another building, and suffer greatly from poor storage and frequent shifting about. Other significant failings in the facilities could be reported, but such are probably inevitable in any commercial or educational television opera-

The Scarborough Television Facilities and Staff I 31 tion during its first few years. It is more important to note that they are gradually being ironed out, and that the facilities now seem to be running smoothly, meeting the high professional standards necessary for leasing to META and ETVO. However, a serious problem which remains is the question of standards and compatibility. In a university community where foresight ought to be a common commodity, the new media have been incorporated into academic life at Scarborough, and for that matter in every other television facility in the university, without a common, basic set of technical standards. Until very recently, it wasn't possible for a Scarborough College professor to borrow a videotape from a colleague in the same department at Erindale. This problem has been solved by equipping Scarborough with a variety of playback facilities of different kinds, and at a considerable extra cost which could have been avoided if all videotapes throughout the university had been made on the same type of recording equipment. The problem is not one which originates with the university, but rather with the television industry itself. Numerous competitive types of equipment are produced, each incompatible with all the others. In the long run, only the co-operation of a large number of educational institutions in setting universally accepted standards of equipment will fully eliminate expensive overlap and duplication, but in the meantime the University of Toronto could at least standardize facilities within its own member institutions. The CBC, for example, has an elaborate set of standards which, at one and the same time, preserve a certain standard of quality and assure interchangeability of components in the system. THE TELEVISION STAFF

Building a competent and enthusiastic television staff in a college would be difficult under the best of conditions. Personnel must usually be recruited from the commercial world of television, where money is available to mount elaborate productions, where both technical and professional standards are well established, and where the director is really in command of his experienced performers. Moreover, in commercial television the effectiveness of the program is soon known to those responsible through sales, audience reaction, and the other channels of feedback. In the university world, the television producer must constantly watch his pennies. He must work with professors who are usually rank amateurs in the television studio, who will often not even accept suggestions, and

38 / Test Pattern who insist on maintaining old formats in the new media. When the program is completed, the television staff have very little idea whether or not they have succeeded in pleasing the student audience. Faculty complaints, on the other hand, are never slow in coming back. Most of the television staff at Scarborough came to the college and educational television as a result of deliberate decisions to leave a commercial world which seemed empty of meaning and purpose. For a few of the staff, Scarborough television is just a job, but after personally experiencing the dedication and co-operation forthcoming from the majority of the television staff, this author has no doubt that they are doing something they consider useful and significant. The present staff consists of eleven persons under a supervisor ( who was formerly called director). The staff members have a mean average of five years' experience in broadcast television, with a range of one year to twelve years. Most came to Scarborough with high hopes, but have learned to live a conditional existence, reminded frequently that their work is an experiment. As a result of the feud between the television administration and the faculty, most of the present television staff feel shut off from the college life and share something of an enclave mentality. Defensive and worried about their future, they are hesitant now about making suggestions to professors, or doing anything to promote the use of television in the college. When this study was begun in the early summer of 1970, the staff morale was just beginning to recover from the low point it had reached when four members of the staff were laid off in July 1969. A tentative new hope had arisen with the dean's appointment of an academic as director, though it was tempered by a feeling that the new director lacked the technical competence necessary to take real leadership. Subsequently a number of changes occurred, with one valuable byproduct being higher morale among the television staff. Most important was the transfer of the overall administration of the facilities to a newlycreated media co-ordinating office, the Instructional Media Centre of the university. This centre was rapidly expanding under dynamic leadership as this was written; the Scarborough studio staff felt accordingly that the university was beginning to take television seriously as a useful instructional aid. In the college itself the dean appointed an Advisory Committee on Television, which was encouraging and facilitating more innovative uses of the medium by faculty members. Though this committee was still far

The Scarborough Television Facilities and Staff I 39 from enjoying majority faculty support and involvement, its very existence seemed a welcome omen to the studio staff. The appointment of a technical producer responsible for quality control (previously left to whoever was switching at the time) closed a longstanding gap in studio organization. The convening of staff consultation meetings and the increasing technical competence of the supervisor, who was showing a readiness to listen and learn, tended to improve both production quality and morale. Partial leasing of facilities to ETVO created a new flow of work of a challenging quality, done in co-operation with professionals from outside the college. The staff, far from resenting the use of the facilities by outside agencies, appeared to be enjoying the professional contact and creative stimulation resulting from such leasing. College use of the facilities during the 1970-1 year has tended away from the replacement-type lecture, in which the replaced professor was so frequently concerned about his legal rights and his economic bargaining positions. There has been a marked increase in use of the facilities by professors who want to enrich courses. These teachers are usually quite unconcerned with defending themselves against the incursion of television but, rather, want to solicit the advice and assistance of the television staff. However, it will probably be some time yet before the defensive posture instinctively assumed by the television staff gives way to a new confidence. The situation is still so delicate that any important setback would again cause a rapid decline in morale. There is a tendency for the technical staff to see themselves as a 'we' group against two 'they' groups: the college faculty and the television directorate in the Scarborough office and downtown. The technicians would now like to believe they can begin to trust their own directorate, but they are not yet ready to feel at ease with the college faculty, even when the faculty take the initiative. THE PRODUCTION PATTERN

The present administration of Scarborough television is as follows. The supervisor of the Scarborough studies ( formerly called director) is responsible to the director of the Instructional Media Centre of the university. The supervisor is also the local link with college faculty and administration. Responsible to him are ( 1) a traffic co-ordinator, who receives requests for scheduling production, editing and playbacks, searching and booking of programs and films, and similar work; (2) a technical pro-

40 / Test Pattern ducer, who supervises the technical quality of productions; (3) a resident producer-director, and ( 4) a maintenance supervisor. The studios operate on a team system under which each technician is competent to operate any aspect of the system ( camera, master control, switching, etc.), thus creating a highly flexible and economic production crew. The position of resident producer-director ( a role which the technical producer may also play on occasion) is probably the most crucial for interpretation of the television experience to the producing professor. In some cases, especially during peaks in the production schedule, freelance directors are hired for specific programs, and must play the same role: the extent to which they fulfil it depends largely on personality, but in most cases they would have less likelihood of success than a resident producerdirector, because of less frequent or continuous personal association with the professors. When a professor wishes to produce a program, he must first have a budget allocation, which in most cases means that he must have thought of using television quite some time before, when the budget was drawn up by the college. (There is some opportunity, however, for the production of programs not planned well in advance. This is provided by a special university production fund of the Instructional Media Centre.) Assuming he has the agreement of his department, the professor approaches the Media Centre with his proposal. If it seems practical within the capacity of the studios, a producer-director will be assigned to assist the professor in developing a script or scripts. One or more production meetings take place with the professor, the producer-director, and, on occasion, the technical producer. When a script is completed to the professor's satisfaction, the producer-director supervises the actual production in the studio. This is a very simplified description of what is, in fact, a complex set of human interactions, in which misunderstandings, disappointments, and conflicts of interest and intention must all be negotiated. The professor is supposed to be in control of the decision-making process. He certainly has some idea of what he wants the end product to look like, but in most cases he is at the severe disadvantage of not knowing how to use the technology, or even what possible uses are available. This is a disadvantage he does not suffer (at least to so great an extent) when producing a lecture, seminar, learned address, scholarly article, or textbook. The producer-director, on the other hand, while he has definite ideas about what looks good on the screen, may not be able to persuade the professor to adopt the suggested approach. He must use the same pro-

The Scarborough Television Facilities and Staff/ 41

cess of persuasion and demonstration as an advertising copywriter, for example, might use to persuade a corporate customer to buy his copy. However, there is an important difference. The copywriter intends mainly to sell his services: he is not primarily concerned with protecting the consumer who ultimately reads his copy from buying poorly-made goods. The resident producer-director must concern himself with protecting the student from poorly-made television. His motive may not be purely altruistic! Poor student reaction will lead to a decline in use of television, which will do little harm to the professor but will certainly hurt the television staff. Few professors show respect for the producer-director as a professional in his own right. Most do not treat him as a peer, as they would a lawyer or physician. Part of the respect shown to professionals arises from the practice of paying a fee for their services. Until the past year, no specific cost records were kept for production of lectures or most other teaching programs. Thus a professor often had little idea of what some of his proposals would cost and, as the television staff tell it, had little appreciation for the difficulties involved in complex television production. Most professors, however, have a high appreciation of the value of their own time, and therefore resent being kept waiting in the studio while camera or lights are adjusted, tapes rewound, and other necessary preparations completed. Moreover, most professors are accustomed to producing something by beginning with rough ideas, filling them in, revising, polishing, revising again, and so forth. They see editing as a vital part of the production process. The producer-director, on the other hand, is painfully aware of the cost of editing and retaking in television. Anyone who has ever attempted to edit out a sentence from a voice tape without cutting a bit too much at either end, and then tried to replace it with another sentence of exactly the same time span, will appreciate the much greater difficulty of neatly editing a videotape. Two machines are necessary for the videotape editing process, which thus occupies two-thirds of the mechanical production facility. To avoid editing, the producer-director will attempt to produce a segment of a program or even a whole short program in one continuous take, and may prefer to run a whole session again rather than attempt to patch up a minute or so of tape. This reluctance to edit was frequently criticized by faculty members interviewed at the college, but few were aware of the problems involved. Because the college has an extremely uneven production year with a great rush of work in the spring term and very little to do in the early fall, a staff adequate to operate the facilities efficiently during busy periods

42 / Test Pattern would be larger than would be required throughout more than half the year. Thus a policy of hiring freelance cameramen and other technicians has been followed. For the studio staff, this has no particular disadvantages. Indeed, it permits work contacts outside the somewhat isolated enclave of the studios. It does, however, interfere with the building up of a staff of technicians who can relate to professors. Some of the television staff have felt that since the layoff of four technicians in July 1969, the studios have operated with too small a staff, inefficiently supplemented by freelancers. Yet the total hours actually scheduled for freelance staff over the past year would not constitute one yearlong job - even if they could be spread out, which they cannot. 5 However, it would certainly appear reasonable that, in so far as possible, 'resident' directors and technicians who have become familiar with the particular problems of making educational programs should be preferred. Resident staff are more flexible on the job; they are less exacting, for example, about union jurisdictional rules which discourage a lighting man from helping the cameraman with his cable. The policy of leasing slow times during the year to ETVO and META productions has been useful in stabilizing an efficient technical staff, which is then available, with its accumulated skills, for college and university productions. THE PRODUCTION RECORD

Table 3 shows the production of videotapes to October 1968. Up to 1970 an additional thirty-seven lecture tapes had been made. Sixteen professors were involved in these productions, ten of them working in teams, and six in solo series. Two of these professors were no longer at the college in 1969-70. The other fourteen were all interviewed at length by the author, and their experiences are summed up in chapter 4. The total enrolment of the courses to which these lectures have been replayed exceeds 5,000 students, and ranges from a low of 100 students for one unsuccessful series of tapes to a total of 1,000 students in a course replayed over three years. Only four of the lecture courses produced at the college were still being replayed in the 1970-1 academic year. The other courses had reverted to live teaching. Four of the lecture series which were not running 5/During the 1969-70 academic year, the studios hired one, two, and sometimes three freelance cameramen on various occasions, but the total number of work days involved for the year was only 158. Other freelance work totalled 94 work days. Even if all this work were evenly spread over the year, and if one additional person could have been sufficient on days when up to five camera, light, mike boom, and audio freelancers (in total) were hired, neither of which qualifications is practicable, the total of 252 days would still barely add up to one more job.

The Scarborough Television Facilities and Staff/ 43 TABLE 3 Production at Scarborough College Television Studios to October 1968 Course Biology B14 Botany Chemistry English Geography Mathematics Physics Sociology Zoology

Lectures on tape 48 45 50 49 23 39 50 49 46

Total

399

Course

Laboratories on tape

Botany 110 Biology 310 Chemistry 110 Chemistry 214 Chemistry 211 Physics 110 Zoology 211 Zoology 100

24 45 25 8 45 8

40

20

Total

215

Course

Supplementary programs on tape

Classics 200 English 201 Philosophy 210 Political Science Psychology 100 Sociology 201

2

1 1 10 3

Total

26

3

SOURCE: H. K. Davis, 'Educational Resources Uses at Scarborough College,' (Letter to Principal Plumptre, 28 October 1968).

any longer did have a full life of three years. Two of those still running were into their fourth year. One series, made a year before, had run one year and was expected to continue in use. It is interesting to note that the original intention - to continue replay

44 / Test Pattern

even after a professor left until the three-year life was exhausted, with payments being made meanwhile to the professor-producer - was carried out in two courses. In a third course a videotaped series allowed its professor-producer to go on sabbatical while a colleague took over responsibility for grading student papers and the tapes continued to provide the lecture content. The professors concerned in this case seemed satisfied with the results achieved. The production records suggest that - to the extent that enrolments, projected college finances, and the General Program ( on which the original television plans were based) all continued in effect until 1968-9 - the Scarborough television lecture experiment was certainly not a 'disaster,' as some newspaper reports have labelled it. However, it was not a popular experiment with either faculty or students, as evidenced in chapters 4, 5, and 6. When the introduction of the New Program, combined with lower enrolments than projected and faculty resistance, began to discourage replacement-type lecture videotapes, the experiment was doomed to fall short of its original objectives. New objectives have been slow to emerge. The studios are now truly in an experimental phase. The 1969-70 academic year was a difficult one, but the production pattern was an exciting and hopeful omen to those who would really like to innovate with television. Appendix 2 contains a list of the productions made at Scarborough during the 1969-70 academic year, including revisions to existing lecture tapes, new lecture tapes, and innovative types of programs. COSTS

In chapter 1 it was noted that the original economic arguments for lecturereplacement production in the Scarborough studios assumed a typical production cost of $16,500 for a year's lecture tapes (forty-five to fifty lectures), or an average of about $350 per tape. What type of television ,program will this amount buy? The reader may form his own impression by considering the cost of programs of various types made in 1969-70. Examples are listed in table 4. Note that direct costs only are shown; indirect operating costs would add substantially to the figures, but cannot be stated as an exact percentage since they vary according to the intensity of use of the plant and equipment. There is certainly a useful role for the straight 'talk program,' such as items 28, 17, 32, and 33. It is far from necessary that each replacement lecture in a course of perhaps fifty such videotaped lectures should be an elaborate production with dramatizations or graphics. On the other hand,

The Scarborough Television Facilities and Staff/ 45 TABLE 4

Costs of Some Programs from Appendix 2

Item•

Program Type

28

Instructional talk on safety procedures in the chemistry lab. (40 minutes) Two tasks in psychology: a demonstration Discussion type program - two persons (43 minutes) Seven interviews, each approximately half an hour, exploring the ethics, philosophy, and history of microbiology (total of 3-1/2 hours) Half-hour illustrated program on the ancient Greek poet, Pindar Student dramatizations of scenes from four Shakespeare plays depicting his concepts of love Four student-produced academic television essays in the sociology of interpersonal relations with sets, lighting effects, etc. (total of four hours of program) Four pilot programs in Spanish for first year students, with graphics; emphasis on everyday spoken language situations (each program lecture-length) Three dramatic productions, special sets, actors' fees, etc. (hour and half-hour programs) Four medical programs, ranging from 20 minutes to 40 minutes, special graphics, actor's fee, translation to Spanish, etc.

17 32 33 31 25 11

20

23 13

Direct Production Cost $

63 167 274 700 1,400 1,800

2,800

4,400

6,700 13,000

*Item numbers refer to appendix 2

a long series of 'talking-head-in-a-box' programs has an absolutely deadening effect. The reader might wish to test this effect himself while watching television at home. Find a serious, non-entertaining program in which one or two people occupy the camera for half an hour without changes in background or interruption by any other visual material. Such programs do exist, although they are rare. Sit quietly, without moving from your place for the half-hour. Do not talk to anyone else. Do not imbibe refreshments. Pay close attention and take some notes. Then imagine doing this, without even commercial breaks, for four or six forty-five-minute periods a week, perhaps two of them in immediate succession. You would probably find it was really hard work. Yet Scarborough College students were expected to continue paying careful attention to many examples of this type of program over a whole academic year.

46 / Test Pattern

This is not to say that all lecture programs were of this type. Some of the programs produced by the 'television teacher' group discussed in chapter 4 made considerable use of graphics, slides, films, lighting effects, and even dramatizations. This does not mean, however, that students always found these more visual programs the most effective. One course with considerable visual material was rated very poor. The important point is that the factor of three and the average budget allowance of $350 per program did not allow the professor or the studios to produce television material which could consistently hold the interest of the sophisticated viewer. The prospectus on types of programs and their costs distributed during 1970 to all professors interested in using television further demonstrates the severe limits which a $350 average cost per program would impose on the typical lecture-length program. Table 5 is adapted from the prospectus. These tentative costs indicate that an average expenditure per lecture of at least $700 (type D) would be necessary to produce programs approaching the level of quality which students are accustomed to viewing on commercial television. A detailed examination of the master control log of the studios from October to March of the 1969-70 academic year further illustrates the trend away from lecture-replacement production toward a greatly varied mix of television-teaching activity. Alongside the regular pattern of replays of lecture tapes and the production of new tapes and laboratory sessions, appeared an increasingly frequent pattern of rental of studios to outside educational television agencies, and on several occasions to the CBC and a community college. In addition, there were numerous instances of off-air dubbing. The totals of various types of activities during the October-March period were as follows : Bookings for replay of tapes into lectures by professors Number of tapes replayed under the above bookings Total hours of tape replayed in these bookings Number of dubs (off-air, etc.) Hours of dubbing Hours of editing

344 1,309 588-1/2 47 38 125

During the 1970-1 year, rental of the studios to agencies outside the university increased substantially, bringing in as much income as the college itself invested during the year in the use of television. Thus, in a haphazard and almost accidental way brought about by the circumstances

The Scarborough Television Facilities and Staff / 4 7 TABLES Tentative Cost Schedule to University of Toronto Divisions for Scarborough College Television Productions Direct costs only

Type of program A

B

c

D

I!

A ten- to twenty-minute lab or equivalent program in Studio 6 for which all production supplies are provided by the user and one or two crew are required (1 camera, 1 switcherdirector). Does not include cost of dubbing, editing, or one-inch tape stock where these are required Panel or talk programs in Studio 2. Telecine available but assumption is that slide or film material will be minimal Studio 1 interview or panel program requiring minimal staging, lighting, and production planning, where the emphasis is on personalities or authorities, what they say, and how they say it - that is a 'televised radio program' Studio 1 illustrated lecture involving moderate to extensive visual production value (set, graphics, apparatus, rear screen and telecine inserts, etc.) Background documentary, interdisciplinary or electronic book type program involving extensive planning and preparation of materials and more than one day of shooting

Minimum

Maximum

$ 75

$ 87

60

400

190

900

710

1,475

1,220

3,000

which undermined the originally intended use, the college television facilities are moving closer to the larger vision of their early planners, who anticipated the expansion of the television experiment beyond the college to the university and to public broadcasting.

4 SCARBOROUGH'S TELEVISION TEACHERS

This chapter reports the attitudes and opinions of the fourteen professors most experienced in instructional television in the college. These fourteen, together with two others no longer in the college, used the television facilities extensively for the purpose of replacing live lectures and live laboratory demonstrations by videotaped instruction. This use is in contrast with the use of television to supplement live teaching, which is discussed in chapter 5. Hereafter the replacement users are referred to as television teachers. Eleven of the sixteen television teachers were in the science division. 1 Data for chapters 4 and 5 were gathered by personal interview of all concerned. Professors were assured of complete anonymity, although not all desired this. Data are reported collectively to prevent identification of sources, in keeping with the approach set out in the preface. The fourteen television teachers interviewed represent a total of 136 years of university teaching experience, a mean of about 10 years but a mode of 5, as the range is from 3 to 33 years. They represent 57 years of teaching at Scarborough College, a mode of 4 with a range of 1 to 5 years. The fact that Scarborough College was initially committed heavily to the use of instructional television was a favourable factor in the decision of only four of the fourteen in seeking appointment to the college. Eight reported an original indifference. When appointed, two were not even aware of the extent of, or intentions for, the college television facilities. Only one of the fourteen brought with him any significant previous experience with instructional television ( as did one of the two no longer at the college). One other professor had extensive experience with radio. 1/The college teaching staff is organized into three divisions for administrative purposes: science (which includes psychology), humanities, and social sciences. Faculty members are also members of departments of the university. There are approximately 150 faculty members above the level of instructor.

Scarborough's Television Teachers/ 49

Some had had a brief taste of television in the 1965 pilot series, but the remainder started from scratch when they arrived at the new college. Only seven were originally enthusiastic about producing a course on TV. But even willingness to invest time and effort did not necessarily result in programs that were effective, either by the television staff's evaluation or by that of the students. One of the fourteen, who had had no prior television or radio experience, was determined to make good videotapes. He devoted so much time to this that his professional career was seriously endangered. Moreover, he failed dismally, in the opinion of his audience, to communicate his material effectively to them by television. It is important to note, however, that this same teacher was also rated by his students as very poor in live lectures. Not one of the fourteen television teachers believed that whatever success he might achieve in producing effective television programs ( as measured, for example, by student performance in examinations), or popular programs ( as measured by student evaluations) would bring him, from either students or colleagues, appreciation and credit commensurate with the time and effort invested. Several did feel that their work was valued to a great enough extent, when combined with their own interest in it, to be worth doing. Others, by contrast, felt deep resentment at having been manoeuvered, by a combination of forces including administrative pressures and the lack of live teaching staff, into having no choice but to use television. Certainly there was no conviction that the time invested in television teaching would bring as much recognition and thus contribute as much to one's career as the same amount of time invested in publishing. However, this was also recognized to be true of teaching in general compared to publishing. Since those using television extensively were always a small minority in the college, any substantial effort they invested in television not only placed them at a disadvantage in the publish-or-perish competition, but also left them open to the potential derision of their colleagues, no matter how jokingly expressed, for trying to become TV stars. It had been clearly laid out, in the administration's intended procedures for the use of television, that professors should have taught a course live at least once before televising it. However, as a result of emergency situations, two of the fourteen videotaped courses made had never been given live: as a result, the introduction of these professors to television was doubly painful. Five of the fourteen followed the original plan and had their previous year's lectures audiotaped, scripted, edited, and then video-

50 / Test Pattern taped. Three of these five scrapped the scripts, however, when televising later lectures in their series, having found this method much too formal and inhibiting. Indeed, it was a general complaint among the fourteen that televising their lectures had a formalizing and restricting effect. They reported that on television joking became more difficult. They worried that the students laughed more at the unintended, embarrassing situations, such as when they dropped their notes or the blackboard fell over. Informal, ironic, or satirical asides became difficult or seemed contrived. Gestures and motions on the floor had to be restrained. An early television producer-director actually attempted to compel professors to stay in an extremely limited area in front of the cameras, thus freezing not only their bodies but also their style of presentation. Of course, these are the faults of an ill-conceived use of television, not of television itself. A comparison with the fluidity of commercial programs demonstrates this. Fortunately, some of the fourteen who persevered forced change in the methods of televising so that later tapes were of much higher quality. Students reported observing a loosening of professorial style and a warmer, more personal, discursive approach. Students noted that certain professors began to move around more and were willing to get off the screen entirely, giving way to more illustrations and graphics. Even today, however, only two or three of the television teachers seem to have recognized that the fundamental nature of television is visual rather than auditory - that what is seen is more important than what is heard. All but these few began their planning by deciding what would be said during the televised lecture, rather than what would be seen. Only one of the fourteen, in fact, clearly articulated the viewpoint that 'one has to start with the visuals and work backwards toward what will be said about them.'2 Most professors adjusted their teaching methods to some extent to incorporate more visual material, and some teachers inserted occasional breaks in the programs, analogous to commercials in allowing a brief suspension of attention. They were usually reluctant to get off the screen altogether and let visual material speak for itself. Academics on television seem to have a deep urge to interpret, comment upon, and criticize, out of an anxiety that the student will not get the right message: witness, for example, the tendency to personally introduce a fictional film or a 2/See Caleb Gattegno, Towards A Visual Culture (New York: Outerbridge, 1969) for a detailed explanation of this concept.

Scarborough's Television Teacher.J / 51 semi-documentary which could stand on its own. One of the most successful users of television at the college (in the estimate of both his colleagues and his students) had come to realize that 'students can do more on their own than I used to think.' The most traumatic aspect of television teaching, as reported by the fourteen, was the absence of direct feedback from students. This was not simply a matter of missing the immediate opportunity for students to ask questions. Indeed, seven of the fourteen expressed the opinion that most freshmen questions were a waste of time and could be avoided if the students did their reading. One even volunteered that he liked using television for freshmen courses because he was spared the 'frustrating contact with these ignorant students.' Most shared the suspicion that students asked questions in order to be noticed by the professor, rather than for the sake of a clarification. However, it might be added that some professors like to be asked questions in order to be able to demonstrate their ability to field any problem that students can present. The lack of feedback was felt more keenly in the television teachers' own pacing of delivery. In the live lecture hall these professors could get frequent cues such as puzzled looks, furious scratching of pencils, and requests for repetition, which told them how rapidly or how slowly to cover a given portion of the content, and which portions to emphasize. On television a professor who has taught the same material live may draw on his past experience of such cues, but there is no guarantee that this year's class will require the same pace, clarifications, emphasis, and repetition as last year's. Scarborough College automatically adapted television to the existing lecture timetable, with fifty-minute lectures separated by ten-minute periods for class changes, rather than modifying the timetable to suit the needs of television. This is a strong indication of the degree to which the faculty (perhaps unconsciously) avoided the urge toward pedagogical innovation implied in adopting the new medium. An interesting comparison could be made with Trent University, where the operation of two campuses some twenty minutes apart by bus (with students required to attend classes at both campuses on the same day, and often in immediately adjacent lecture periods) forced a substantial alteration in the traditional fifty-minute hour to allow time for student movement. Both commercial television experience and the e~perience of the television teachers at Scarborough would suggest that a thirty-minute lecture, or at most forty minutes, would have proved more effective in most courses. It is possible to compress much more information into fifty

52 / Test Pattern minutes of well-prepared television than would normally be contained in a fifty-minute live lecture, unless the live lecture consisted of reading a prepared script. Ten of the fourteen television teachers at the college were uncomfortably aware of this data-intensifying characteristic of television. This did not mean they necessarily believed a higher data density per lecture was desirable; in fact some tried to avoid it, but with the camera eye staring unblinkingly there was a tendency to keep talking. The reader can test this experience for himself by turning on an audio tape recorder and starting to talk from prepared notes, as if recording a lecture. Almost inevitably, he will be drawn into his material at a considerably faster pace than if speaking extemporaneously or from very brief cues. Scarborough students reported much higher approval of professors using an impromptu style over a fifty-minute period than of those whose programs were heavy with information. The latter would have been more effective if limited to thirty minutes. However, to have modified the whole college lecture schedule to suit the needs of effective television teaching would have required a recognition and acceptance of the educational impact of the new medium, which most Scarborough faculty were not prepared to concede. An important effect of the lack of student-to-professor feedback in television lectures occurs between the lectures. In live teaching, the professor can alter next week's lecture according to his experience this week. He can go over some of the content again, or incorporate new content to meet a special interest expressed by students, or drop material which now seems too obvious. A live lecture series grows as each new lecture is affected by the experience of delivering the previous one to the students. Even the quite formal lecture series still remains something of a dialogue between teacher and students. A videotaped lecture series of perhaps ten to twenty or more tapes, all made in advance, also grows from lecture to lecture, but this time in a dialogue of response to the camera rather than to the students. The experience of delivery which is incorporated in the later lectures is that felt by the lecturer in the studio. When the series is played during an academic session, there is little or no opportunity to adjust lectures to incorporate student experience with the earlier ones. The experience felt by the professor before a camera day after day as he produces his videotapes is not the frequently rewarding one of observing his students receiving new ideas and responding to them. Instead, the professor goes through the often ego-shattering experience of delivering

Scarborough's Television Teachers/ 53

lectures to a camera and to half a dozen technicians who usually have no interest in what is being said - who in fact hear but 'aren't even listening.' What can be more frustrating for a teacher than to be talking to people who are not listening? Even the producer-director working with the professor is much more concerned that a program look and sound good than with what is being said about geometry or sociology. Finally, one of the most useful functions of feedback in the live lecture is that a mistake by either the enquiring student or the professor himself can often serve as a clarifying highlight. A mistake in the calculation of an equation or logical exposition of a theory, emphasized by contrast with the correct datum, gives an opening for discussion of an alternative theory. It is difficult to build mistakes artificially into a televised, and especially a pre-scripted, lecture without the result looking phony and contrived. It can be done by an astute television performer who flows on with his argument for a few sentences, then comes back to ask, in a humorous way, whether the viewer noticed the mistake. Of course, this is possible only with mistakes which the professor creates. There are no students to offer such opportunities for him. These various functions of feedback have been used as arguments for a studio audience of live students to whom the professor would deliver his lecture while being videotaped. In some cases this achieves a more realistic tape, but in many instances the product is quite a different television experience for the classroom viewers later on. When the professor is talking directly to the camera, imagining himself talking to the class in the lecture ball, the viewing audience receives his communication directly, full-face on. The head in the box is at least talking to them. But when there is a studio audience, the later classroom audience is often put into the position of voyeurs, peeping in from the outside on a lecture being given to somebody else. Another quite separate kind of feedback which takes place when a professor televises bis lectures is that, perhaps for the first time, he sees what he looks like from his students' point of view. This may not be a pleasant experience! Six of the fourteen television teachers found it so painful they had never viewed most of the tapes they had made; the first few playbacks were enough. Four of the fourteen had seen most of their tapes in studio playback and four had seen all of them at least once. Thus almost half of the college's television teachers had not seen all of the programs they had made, even in the relative security of the private viewing studio. Even fewer took the ·greater risk of watching themselves in action on television while in the company of their students. Four of the

54 I Test Pattern

fourteen had never joined their students in the classroom to sit through a full program, and four more had only very occasionally visited the classroom during replay of one of their televised lectures. Only three of the fourteen had seen all of their programs while sitting with the class, at one time or another during the three years of replays. Those who avoided seeing themselves on television in the classroom argued that the whole point of making the televised lecture was to avoid having to be with the class during that hour. But when pressed, four professors specifically admitted that they found watching themselves on television to be a distressing experience. What they saw was not what they imagined themselves to look like when teaching, and they preferred to avoid it. Four more found the revelation painful but had continued to watch themselves and their students' reactions at least to the point of gaining useful insights into their teaching methods, which led to selfimprovement. Most of the Scarborough television teachers took little advantage of any possible suggestions their colleagues might have made about improvement in teaching methods related to television. A limited amount of viewing of each other's tapes was arranged through a special seminar for this purpose, but generally each television teacher respectfully avoided specific criticism of his colleagues' productions. Although ten of the television teachers were involved in team-taught courses, there was almost no co-operation between members of the various teams in the use of television itself. The team members divided up the content of the course, each agreeing to teach a certain portion, then each went his own way. There was little concern to produce a consistent pattern of television use throughout a course - or even to provide the benefits of the experience of the early users to the later ones. It would be hard to imagine a commercial series of programs being made in this fashion, but in the college the understanding of academic freedom which allowed professors to teach in their own styles without interference was automatically extended to teaching on television. In addition, no departmental or administrative personnel in the college ever attempted to plan the use of television so that students would not be scheduled to watch more televised lectures than they could tolerate in one day. It was simply assumed that students who could absorb three or four live lectures in succession could sit through the same number of hours of television. This assumption applied with a vengeance the frequent parental complaint that 'the kids nowadays are always in front of that damned television set.'

Scarborough's Television Teachers I 55 Only one of the fourteen television teachers had ever sat down in front of a television set at home, in the college, or elsewhere, to treat even a half-hour program as a learning experience in which the material presented would have to be carefully absorbed for later reference and regurgitation. Even this one exception did not occur because the teacher wanted to find out what it was like to be a student in a television classroom. It happened quite accidentally when the professor lost the script to a television program made some time before, and arranged to view it while he took notes to reconstruct the missing script. 'I found it a much more difficult thing to do than I'd ever imagined,' he reported. Needless to say, none of the fourteen had ever been a student in a television course himself so that, but for the one accident, none had anything approaching a realistic personal impression of what it was like to be a student in a lecture series taught on television. Six of the television teachers tried to assist student absorption of information from the televised lectures by distributing mimeographed handouts in advance. These usually consisted of important terminology, charts, formulae, or summaries. Two of the fourteen used texts which provided all the necessary information, so that few notes were required from the videotaped programs. The remaining six expected notes to be taken. The belief that televised lectures were intended to relieve the producing professor of the responsibility of appearing in the classroom regularly so as to free his time for other purposes, together with the professors' reluctance to watch themselves on television while sitting with a potentially critical and even hostile audience, combined to leave most classes in televised lecture courses without a disciplinary authority present during the lecture. Only five of the fourteen television teachers appeared in their classes at regular intervals throughout the year and arranged for some substitute authority to be present in their absence. Several others appointed student proctors, or asked their seminar leaders to be present, but these individuals could rarely command sufficient authority to prevent distraction and disorder. As the year ,ground on, the less serious students tended to skip the lectures, so that to some extent the problem of discipline eventually took care of itself. However, at least three professors knew that discipline problems existed in the classroom during television playbacks, but washed their hands of any responsibility. One quite bluntly argued it was 'the dean's problem.' His own job had been done in making the televised lectures; maintaining order in classrooms was not part of his teaching role. None of the fourteen thought television teaching improved attendance

56 I Test Pattern at lectures. Seven thought it reduced attendance; the rest either thought it made no difference, or had no opinion. Studies elsewhere indicate that television can sharply reduce the rate of attendance, compared to the same material taught live. 3 Scarborough's television teachers were not keenly interested in discovering exactly what their students thought of their televised lectures. Only two of the fourteen ever conducted an anonymous student evaluation of their televised courses. The remainder had occasionally consulted assistants or demonstrators for student reactions at second hand, or had made no effort at all to find out what students thought. Of those who did enquire, five believed their students disliked the televised lectures. However, these professors did not consider student disapproval as impugning their ability to teach, because they did not want to teach on television anyway. Only four of the television teachers believed students had definitely benefited from televised programs through the incorporation of visual materials, field trips, guest speakers, and, particularly, more visible and audible demonstrations in labs. Four thought students were worse off with televised lectures, in terms of the quality of teaching; the remaining six had no opinion, or considered the difference insignificant. When marks alone were considered, only one of the fourteen teachers believed students were performing better than in a comparable course taught live. Nine saw no significant difference and four believed student marks were lower because of television. This last opinion was frequently heard throughout the college when television was discussed. To determine its origin, a comparison was made of failure rates in the courses taught by television with other failure rates in the college and, in one subject, with failure rates on the St George campus. Failure rates in the science courses were above those in the arts courses taught on television, but this reflects a similar pattern in live teaching. There were only two courses taught by television, both in science, in which the failure rates could be considered unusually high, that is over 33 per cent of the class. 4 There was no correlation whatever between failure rates in courses and the attitudes of the professors involved toward using television. In fact, one of the highest failure rates was in a course whose teacher was quite favourable to the use of television, as well as 3/G. Lindzey, 'Systematic Comparison of Methods of Large Scale Undergraduate Instruction,' mimeographed (University of Texas, 1969), p.SO 4/As a percentage of those in the class at the time of examination, not of the original enrolment.

Scarborough's Television Teachers/ 57

energetic and innovative in applying the new medium. The significant variables seemed to be teaching ability in general, and the difficulty of putting certain course material on television. The more visual the original material in a course, the more easily it may be translated to television. Thus laboratory demonstrations, field trips, art works, and similar content are rather easily made into 'good television.' The more abstract and symbolic the material, the more difficult the translation to a visual medium. It can still be done (by using techniques of animation, for example) but it takes more skill, imagination, and money. As a result of their experiences, only four of the fourteen television teachers wanted to go on using television as a replacement for live lectures. Three more would use it for labs but not for lectures. Four would use it only for special programs, and three would like to be rid of it altogether. The television teachers were asked to rate the relative priority of several objectives a professor might have in mind when making a televised lecture. The highest priorities went to arousing a student's curiosity and organizing the material. These two priorities led all others by a considerable margin. Equal but rather low priority was given to such factors as accuracy and comprehensiveness of data, and personal impressions of warmth by the professor when on screen. The very least priority was given to making the program interesting in an entertaining way. Very little priority was given to making programs which would be useful to other professors in the college or elsewhere. This distinguished the approach of the television teachers when making videotapes from the approach they would certainly use if writing a textbook about the subject matter. Thus, although television teaching has been suggested as a more fitting replacement for the textbook than for the live lecture, these academics did not agree. Only four thought any of their productions would be likely to be useful to other teachers of the same subject. The resistance against being entertaining was quite strong. Only four rated this factor in the top three, and none gave it first place. Oddly, the four included a professor who was ranked as one of the most successful television teachers by his students, and one who was ranked as least successful. All four had one important factor in common. They saw television teaching as a problem of mastering a new medium which would require considerable change in teaching methods rather than merely a new way of presenting the same material as in the live lecture. Paradoxically, these four teachers were less concerned about appearing warm and relaxed on the screen than those who were against entertaining. The reason was that

58 / Test Pattern they did not appear nearly as much on the screen themselves, preferring to incorporate more graphics and visual materials, and even voices other than their own. They were not, incidentally, all located in any one division of the college. The high priority given to provoking student curiosity in the subject matter should not be considered equivalent to arousing interest by being entertaining. The goal of arousing student curiosity is a traditional bromide of higher education which, in fact, succeeds with only a small minority of students. As an academic slogan, it usually goes with the image of a self-motivating student hard at work mastering the existing techniques and theories rather than 'playing around' with something interesting but not obviously productive.5 'Entertainment,' on the other hand, conjures up a vision of a passive and unproductive spectator with a good-fornothing desire for divertissement. Entertainment and amusement are now popularly equated, though in fact their root meanings are quite different. Entretenir, to hold between, or keep in the attention of a person, would seem to be a worthy objective of any teacher, as compared to amuser, to delude or beguile.6 Contemporary student demands for relevance in their studies are demands that material be made interesting and worthy of holding their attention, not demands for amusement. Yet there remains among academics a profound distrust of pleasing the student, which is in sharp contrast to the objectives prevailing in sophisticated commercial television and successful educational television. University Television, for example, refers deprecatingly to 'putting on a show to make an impression' and concludes that 'responsible academics' can prevent education from being 'debauched by television.' 7 When Scarborough College began pilot programs at CFTO it was emphasized that they would be made in a 'straight educational way- not as entertainment.' 8 5/0ne of the best documentations of this point is that of James Watson in The Double Helix, in which he reports being frequently discouraged, even at the PH.D. level, from pursuing an offbeat idea. 6/Compare the meaning of 'to entertain an idea,' that is, to give it one's interest and attention. In the author's opinion, professors who abhor entertaining educational television often do so on the mistaken assumption that students wish only to spectate (muse, or stare at) when in fact the constantly changing dynamic mode of much commercial television is effective because it involves the viewer, even physically, as when he jumps up and down on his seat. An enthusiastic professor is not ashamed to be involved thus in his studies - why should he be reluctant to arouse his students? 11 University Television, Supplementary Report of the Committee of Presidents of Provincially-Assisted Universities of Ontario (University of Toronto Bookstores, 1965), p.11 8/Canadian Broadcaster, 11 March 1966

Scarborough's Television Teachers I 59 When commercial television takes its models of production from the theatre, the film, the novel, and the music hall, why should instructional television restrict itself to such models as the formal address and the sermon? Several of the Scarborough television teachers did attempt to respond to the new media with new techniques. One example was the introduction of a five-minute break between two twenty-minute tapes. A problem was posed at the end of the first segment. The students had five minutes to solve it themselves; then the second segment presented the correct solution. Another experiment involved an alternating pattern of live and television lectures. Another involved starting the course with a series of live lectures to establish the professor's personality, with regular appearances at intervals thereafter alternating with televised lectures. Another involved the use of a student panel which appeared on television to pose questions for the professor to answer. In short, some of the fourteen professors did give TV a try in imaginative ways. As a result of their efforts, eight of the fourteen felt they had reached a level of competence in television teaching about parallel to that they had reached in live teaching. Six felt they had not. None felt more competent on television than live. Only four of the fourteen were seriously willing to enrol in a special program designed to teach academics how to use television effectively. Five of the fourteen felt their television experience had had no significant effect on their live teaching, but the majority noted important effects. These included, not unnaturally, a greater appreciation for the advantages of live teaching and of teaching in small groups. They also included, however, more appreciation of the role of visual materials in teaching, a greater awareness of the professor's own distracting mannerisms, and a willingness to organize live lectures more effectively. The factor of three worked very well for three of the fourteen television teachers. They found that putting their lectures on videotape required as little as one-and-a-half or two times the time and effort required for live lectures. These three teachers were not among those least favourably rated by the students, so their relatively low factor of time invested did not necessarily imply poorly made television. There is obviously a certain type of 'natural TV star' who can walk into the studio with little more preparation than he would undertake for a live lecture or demonstration, and hold the attention of the viewers by an easy-going but energetic presentation. On the other hand, eight of the fourteen required at least three and sometimes four years' replay of a lecture series before the original work

60 / Test Pattern investment would be recouped. The additional time required over and above that invested in a live lecture was investigated in detail. In addition to a more thorough preparation of their scripts or notes, these teachers spent much more time selecting and organizing visual material for TV than they did for live lectures. They also spent time in production meetings with the television staff, which would not have been necessary for live lectures. The videotaping of a forty-minute lecture often took three or four times that length of time in the studio. Then there was the preparation of additional handouts not used in live lectures, and a small amount of time spent editing videotapes. Several of the eight who required a factor of three or four years' replay actually invested more than three or four times as much time in the original production of the videotapes as they would have needed for live lectures. However, they felt it was possible to recoup an original investment of perhaps six or seven times the effort over a period of three or four years, because certain side benefits were involved. In addition to being freed from actually delivering the lecture during the replay years, they would not have to s•pend time refreshing their memory from lecture notes each year, and they could avoid unproductive contact with students immediately before and after classes. Furthermore, not having to give a lecture at, say, ten o'clock in the morning, resulted in more than one exact hour of time being made available for alternative work. Rather than losing a whole morning's research through an interruption caused by a lecture at mid-morning, a whole block of useful time was freed. Finally, some advantage was gained in not having to repeat some lectures or laboratory demonstrations to several sections of a large class. The remaining three television teachers believed at least five years would be required to compensate for the time invested in making the lecture series. By that time, however, the series would be obsolete, so they would never catch up. Not all of the eleven who thought it possible to recoup the time believed that when other factors - such as student reaction and the effect on the professor's career - were considered, television actually paid off. In fact, only six of the fourteen believed that, when all things were considered, television could be made to pay its way. Most of these added the qualifications that they would have to be teaching large classes in courses which would remain stable over three to four years, and that the students would not have too many courses in any one year which were fully televised. Three television teachers thought television could be made to pay off only when used on a much less elaborate scale than at Scarborough, such

Scarborough's Television Teachers/ 61

as by demonstrator-operated cameras in labs. Three considered it would pay off educationally but not economically if used to produce wellmounted supplementary programs. Two thought television in the college was not worth the price under any circumstances. The time-recovery problem is closely related to the professor's conception of his rights over the taped lectures. The college needs to use the tapes long enough to recover their cost, and this is achieved by not having to hire staff to teach the classes live for several years after tapes are made. The fourteen television teachers generally understood and accepted this argument as reasonable, if television was to be used at all for lectures. They understood also the rationale of the college's position that, if a professor left before the tapes had been replayed three times, the college should be able to complete the cycle with compensation on a partial scale to the professor. It was strongly felt by the television teachers, however, that permission to view the tapes was their prerogative except when the viewers were students properly enrolled in the course for which the tapes were made. Attitudes toward the television studio staff varied considerably among the television teachers. The majority were originally strongly against entertainment, and reported with considerable resentment various efforts of some early producer-directors to liven up their tapes with what the teachers considered to be gimmicks and 'attempts to make me into a showman.' On the other hand, teachers who wanted to produce tapes which were interesting and successful from the students' point of view, castigated some of the early television staff for being too rigid in their approach and for merely attempting to transfer lecture scripts to videotape. Recently the development of a more diplomatic approach to innovation by the television studio staff has paralleled a shift among the teachers still using television toward greater willingness to try to please the student audience. In their overall attitude to the application of television in the college eight of the fourteen felt the college had over-invested in television, but that the experiment was certainly not a total failure, especially now that the university was taking over. Three felt it was indeed a disaster, and that the college had suffered much from a television 'millstone.' Two felt that, on the whole, the experiment had been worthwhile and would pay off in time. One had no opinion.

5 FACULTY IN A TV COLLEGE

Twenty-five teachers in Scarborough College have used the television facilities to supplement their live teaching activities. The attitude and experiences of these teachers, who will be referred to as purely supplementary users, are the subject of the first part of this chapter. More than half of the sixteen television teachers referred to in chapter 4 also used television in supplementary ways, as well as for the full replacement of live lectures, but none of that group of television teachers is included among the purely supplementary users until development of the typology on page 71. Twelve of the purely supplementary users were interviewed by the author. Seven were in the science division, and the remainder in humanities and social sciences. These twelve teachers represented a total of sixty-three years of teaching experience, a mean of five years, a mode of three years and a range of one to fourteen years. Two were experienced in instructional television before coming to the college. Only three of the twelve originally considered the television facilities a positive reason for seeking an appointment to Scarborough; the remainder were originally indifferent. The supplementary uses of television employed by the twelve are extremely varied. They include field trip reports, interviews of guest experts, off-air dubbing of contemporary material for replay in a lecture, special demonstrations, collages made up of film dubs, and dramatic presentations by students. Programs of lasting interest were made on subjects in which the producing professor was himself expert and wished to publish his research in an audio-visual form. Some videotapes were made by students as television essays and submitted for academic credit. There was a significant tendency among the twelve supplementary users to consult the experience of previous users of television in their fields, either personally or through instructional television literature.

Faculty in a TV College/ 63

There was also a generally more favourable attitude to the television staff and a willingness to draw on the staff's advice and expert knowledge of the medium than among the fourteen television teachers. That is, the supplementary users thought of their work more often as making a television program than as putting a lecture on television. The emphasis was not on the lecture method in which the professor was experienced but on television in which he realized his need for guidance. The one criticism which supplementary users made more frequently than the television teachers concerned the studio staff's reluctance to edit. Only three of the supplementary users reported conflict with staff producer-directors over the right to control their programs. The majority of supplementary users did not see the television staff as rivals for the professor's role nor television as a threatening replacement of their jobs. Conflict was more directly focussed on the different opinions about how to make a good educational television program. The supplementary users' feelings about the television staff, whenever negatively expressed, tended to criticize on grounds of pedagogical principle and technique. Resentments among the fourteen television teachers, by contrast, tended to become attacks on the personality and motivations of television staff. The supplementary users showed much less concern than the television teachers about their legal right to decide who should be allowed to see their tapes and for how many years they should be used. Their productions were fewer and often given more time and effort, and so could be closer to the level of competence of the professor in publication than in lectures. Their programs were more likely to be useful to teachers elsewhere than a televised lecture would be; thus the question of royalties or other similar rewards was more important to the supplementary users than was the question of 'territoriality.' The fact that many of the supplementary uses did not show the professor himself on the screen in his role as a teacher, but instead employed selected visual materials, also reduced the potential threat of the televised program as an invasion of the professor's territory. By no means all the supplementary uses required a heavy investment of time by the professor. In fact, some uses immediately and directly reduced the professor's working time. For example, a dub from a public broadcast replayed into the classroom during a live lecture reduced the time the professor had to talk, and provided a refreshing break for him during the flow of instruction. It even stimulated more interesting questions from the students. The use of television by students also required

64 / Test Pattern very little additional time from the professor. In both these cases, as in others, the extra time invested when television was used was largely absorbed by the television staff. Two of the twelve supplementary users had used television in ways which required three or four times as much preparation as live presentations of the same duration, but there was little concern about the possibility of recouping this investment, since the product was usually one which could be used again and again in future years. Three of the twelve had invested up to ten times as much preparation in a television program as would have been required for live teaching of the same material. There was little likelihood of the teacher personally recovering this investment in future years. However, these users considered the products worthwhile because they were able to present certain concepts or materials to their classes through television which would have been nearly impossible to present in any other medium. In addition, programs of this type were more often of general interest to any teacher of the subject, and could be distributed to other universities, bringing a dividend of publication credit to the producing professor. Thus, in sharp contrast to the large majority of the fourteen television teachers who believed their televised lectures would not be useful to any other teacher ( or any other teacher's lectures useful to them), eight of the twelve supplementary users did believe that some of their productions would be of general interest elsewhere. Seven strongly desired the development of a catalogue source of information about the videotapes which were becoming available elsewhere in the university and beyond. Supplementary users of television were more likely to have seen what they produced at least once, usually more often, and in the presence of the whole class. Eight of the twelve did not wish notes to be taken from the televised material, three supplied students with accompanying handouts, and one relied on a text. None of the twelve teachers reported that their use of television created any problems of disorder in the classroom, since he or she was usually present. One felt that attendance was actually improved by using television, seven felt it remained about the same as in all-live lectures, and four believed the use of television for the major portion of a lecture reduced attendance. The explanation for this was that students were told they would not be tested on the supplementary television material, so only those came who were interested in the material rather than in marks. The conclusion of various research projects on motivation of students in instructional television indicates that there is much greater perform-

Faculty in a TV College/ 65

ance response in a voluntary audience than in a captive audience. 1 The supplementary users' approach to television correlates with this finding: their choice of the most important factors to consider when making television programs in the college was radically different from that of the fourteen television teachers. They still agreed that arousing student curiosity was a top priority, but equal to it was making the program interesting and entertaining. (This was one of the lowest priorities for the fourteen.) The lowest priorities among the twelve supplementary users were given to comprehensiveness and accuracy of data. General utility of the products beyond the teacher's classroom got a much higher priority from the supplementary users than from the television teachers. The lengths to which supplementary users might go to produce an interesting program are perhaps best indicated by one of the twelve. Discovering that his own voice and speech patterns did not produce an attention-holding narration for a program, he agreed to the hiring of a professional actor who spoke the necessary lines - to the considerable satisfaction of the producing professor. For a professor to admit to himself and to the studio staff that he was not the best person to read his own script on television was a courageous concession. Ten of the twelve supplementary users have plans for using television again, although only four feel that they are as effective using television as they are in live teaching. Generally the twelve were opposed to the use of television as a replacement for live lectures, expressing in some cases a conviction that such a use of television is antithetical to modem teaching methods, since it alienates student from professor and reduces the interpersonal relationship in the learning process. The two who do not plan to use television again reported unpleasant experiences with the television staff and, in addition, found the experience of being on TV somewhat disconcerting. The opinions of the twelve supplem_entary users about the overall value of the television facilities in the college were a little more optimistic than those of the fourteen television teachers. One felt the facilities were a complete waste and should never have been built. Eight felt television had not worked well in terms of the original intentions but could be made to work with some alterations, especially by moving away from replacement use to supplemental use. These eight realized that this would go exactly counter to the original expectation that television would save money for the college: in fact, television would be an additional expense, 1/Hidega Kumata, 'A Decade of Teaching by Television,' in W. Schramm, ed., The Impact of Educational Television (University of Illinois, 1960), p.184

66 I Test Pattern and not a small one. Two felt that the experiment had been worthwhile, and one had no conclusion. ANONYMOUS SURVEY OF FACULTY

In addition to the personal interviews of twenty-six faculty members who had used instructional television in the college, a three-page questionnaire was distributed to all teachers at the level of lecturer and above. These questionnaires were returnable anonymously and were sent to 140 teachers in all. Twenty-nine of the fifty sent to the science faculty were returned, as were twenty-five of sixty in the humanities and fourteen of thirty in the social sciences. That is, the returns were about 50 per cent of the sample, and totalled sixty-eight. The results should be taken as having only the very limited value of any questionnaire-obtained data. The intention was merely to supplement the personal interviews, and to offer a general opportunity for any teacher in the college to express an opinion. In order to achieve both generality and anonymity in the results, the faculty members interviewed personally were also sent questionnaires. Several obvious characteristics of teachers in various divisions were reflected in the returns, and indicated their validity as a representative sample of college opinion. The great majority of respondents were under forty years of age. Over half of the science respondents and almost half of the social science respondents were under thirty. The well-known junior status of teachers in the social sciences was also reflected. Their mean average of Scarborough teaching years was two, and the mode one year. The mean average among the science and humanities respondents was three years at Scarborough, and the mode two years. 2 Seventeen respondents in the science division had used television, as had eight in the humanities and five in the social sciences. Thirty-eight of the respondents had never used television at the college. H the respondent had used television he was asked to express an opinion on the most useful applications in his subject matter. These might not have been those he had actually employed. The great majority of responding science teachers preferred to use instructional television mainly or only for laboratory demonstrations ( 40 per cent of all choices). The next most useful forms were considered to be short ( five- to ten-minute) suir 2/Median length of service for all faculty members in the college is three years, so respondents to the questionnaire seem to be reasonably representative of all faculty.

Faculty in a TV College I 61

plementary programs for use during live lectures, and film dubs. Only two science respondents preferred to make lecture videotapes, and two others preferred lecture-length special programs. Among the humanities respondents, the preferred uses were short supplementary programs and lecture-length special programs for enriching rather than replacing live teaching. Among the social science respondents, the favoured uses were short programs and interviews of guests. There was no desire whatever among respondents in either of these two latter divisions to make replacement-type lecture tapes. The use of television for off-air dubbing and for student productions was little considered by the respondents. The latter use, for example, was mentioned only six times by the sixtyeight respondents. Those who had not used television were asked to state any important reason they might have for not doing so. Among the scientists, a preference for 'personal contact with students' was the most-stated reason. However, 'no particular reason' and 'not asked to yet' were each given as answers by three respondents, suggesting that their neglect of instructional television was not so much a matter of distaste as of indifference not yet penetrated by the television staff. Lack of time was mentioned by two respondents. In the humanities and social sciences, lack of time was given as a reason in five returns, preference for personal contact in four, and preference for other audio-visual aids in four. Five respondents in the humanities and two in social sciences reported 'never been asked' as their reason for non-use. Thus thirteen of the thirty-eight non-users showed no particular distaste for television. No one had taken the initiative to suggest its use in their disciplines. The potential for the expanded use of instructional television in the college was further suggested by answers to the next question, which enquired whether the respondent would seriously wish for more information about instructional television. Four scientists, seven social scientists, and ten humanists requested more information about how to use television for short programs, special productions, student productions, and other applications in their disciplines. Thus twenty-one of the thirty-eight non-users were willing to consider some future use but probably were not going to take the first steps themselves. In the current (1970-1) academic year, ten respondents in science, six in humanities, and three in social sciences were actually using television. This meant eleven former users had dropped out, at least for the time being. The remaining nineteen users, however, when added to the twenty-one interested in more information total forty, or almost two-

68 / Test Pattern thirds of the respondents. These returns hardly suggest that instructional television at Scarborough is dead, whatever one might conclude about the success of its originally intended functions. Respondents were asked whether they felt they would receive as much recognition from their colleagues and department for a good non-lecture television program as for presentation of the same material in a more traditional academic format such as a journal article. The opinion that 'time and effort spent ... would be almost a total waste' as far as publication-level recognition was concerned was upheld by eighteen of the twenty-nine science respondents, thirteen of the twenty-five in humanities, and four of the fourteen in social sciences. By contrast, four in science, eight in humanities and nine in social sciences felt some recognition would be gained, but probably not as much as from publication in traditional formats. Four respondents believed just as much credit would be won for a good television program, and the remainder had no opinion. From the returns it appears that members of the social science faculty are the most optimistic about television recognition and those of the science faculty the least optimistic. The respondents were also asked to state an opinion on the success of the television facilities at Scarborough College. The opinion that 'the cost ... has been reasonably well justified by the results so far' was upheld by three in science, two in social sciences, and none in humanities. That the facilities might have been worth the cost 'if properly managed,' but that they had in fact not been well managed, was upheld by five in science, nine in humanities, and three in social sciences. The opinion that less elaborate facilities would have been reasonable but the present facilities were unjustified, was held by fourteen in science, seven in humanities, and four in social sciences. Of all sixty-eight respondents, only seven (five in science and two in humanities) felt the facilities were a total waste of money. Thus, while the majority of the respondents were critical of either the scale or the management of the facilities, few felt that the installation was totally unjustified. A sizeable proportion still had not made up their minds: two in science, six in humanities, and four in social sciences, or a sixth of the whole sample. A question was asked with the intention of assessing the real willingness of faculty to use television to improve teaching methods, as a test of Abbey's conclusion (page 29). Respondents were asked their probable, seriously considered reaction if the television studios made available 'sample teaching situations, in which you were videotaped, then you

F acuity in a TV College / 69

observed your own teaching style during private studio replays.' Eleven in science replied they would 'definitely take advantage of such an offer,' as would nine in humanities and five in social sciences. Twelve respondents used the somewhat face-saving reply that they liked the idea but doubted that they would have time. Twenty stated positively that they had no desire to observe themselves teaching. The remainder made various other replies, and included several who were already taking advantage of such opportunities. The main point is that at least half the sample would not, for one reason or another, take advantage of what has been demonstrated to be one of the most flexible, immediate-feedback mechanisms for observing one's own teaching style and altering it. These results would tend to support the doubts expressed earlier about the Abbey conclusions, and conform to the estimate made by this author and others that self-observation is one of the traumatizing effects of professorial use of instructional television. Concerning faculty control over videotapes, the majority (thirty-six of sixty-eight) desired 'limited control, depending on the college's financial investment, but with a minimum right to limit usage to a mutually agreed period, with extra compensation thereafter ... In any event, the teacher should have a veto over any use outside regular college courses.' A slightly smaller proportion ( twenty-one of sixty-eight) wanted even greater rights - 'complete control over content, revision and use of tapes, with the right to order erasure at any time, or to refuse anyone permission to view the tape.' This stronger attitude was most frequently held among the science respondents. Five respondents had no desire for any particular rights of control over videotapes. Only a small minority of faculty members ( thirteen of sixty-eight) expected any direct compensation for making television programs, such as equal time off from teaching. Seventeen agreed with the statement that no compensation should be expected 'because use of TV, like films, slides, etc., is a matter of choice by the teacher.' The majority expected some form of indirect compensation. These forms included financial compensation if tapes were used outside the course for which they were made, due consideration when applying for a sabbatical, and recognition of a program as a form of publication if it went beyond mere replacement of lecture material. The last option was the most frequently chosen (by eighteen respondents). On the question of personal feelings about television staff, twentysix reported having had no contact whatever with the staff, and a further six reported that they were barely aware that the staff existed. Thus more

70 / Test Pattern than half the teachers responding were strangers to the television staff. Seventeen replied that the television staff were helpful when asked for something; thirteen went further and described the staff as very helpful. Five respondents, four of them in science, reported that they did not enjoy working with the television staff. The overall results of the questionnaire indicate that the strongest opinions, both favourable and unfavourable, are held among those most experienced with television in the college - the scientists. Strong doubts about television combined with a lack of information about its potential were characteristic of the humanities respondents. The youngest, most recently arrived faculty, in the social sciences, showed the greatest lack of information about television in the college, but at the same time tended to be the most open and favourable to its potential use in their courses. Despite all the mismanagement and misfortune which may be said to have attended the implementation of instructional television at Scarborough, the questionnaire indicated that there may well be more teachers today at the college who are ready to 'give television a try' than when the Abbey report was released in 1967. Of course, the kinds of uses they have in mind are very different from the economising, replacement lectures which the original administration planned for the television facilities. Many comments included on the questionnaires are worth quoting. Space permits only a few selections. Although good production staff are necessary to produce an acceptable TV lecture, they always want to produce a 'show' ... As the students are also conditioned to expect a show, the TV staff may be right, but it's not my idea of education. A lecturer must be willing to spend a good deal of time on a TV program, both with graphics and getting outside material such as films. He must involve others in the presentation so students are not faced with one lecturer all the time ... I feel that TV could have been a great success at Scarborough if rank beginners ... with no experience ... [had not been] used ... In many cases the professor acted as director, and hence the failure rate ... a lecturer must rely on a good director. It is my observation of several years' teaching, that contemplation of [subject] ... has suffered drastically because of students' steady diet of TV gazing since childhood. They can no longer perceive the qualities of a stable object ...

Most television production is a teaching aid, and does not make a new contribution to scholarly knowledge. Television lends itself ... only to the undergraduate operation whereas publication is primarily of interest in the research area.

Facuity in a TV College/ 71

As these comments suggest, the questionnaires as much as the personal interviews demonstrated the existence of a great variety of conceptions and approaches concerning instructional television in the college. It would be impossible to describe each of these outlooks while preserving anonymity of sources. However, a systematization of the most sharply divergent approaches would be useful. The typology in chart 1 is obviously over-simplified, as all generalizations must be, but the reader may find it useful to clarify the most important differences between various television users in the college. CHART.1

A Typology of Scarborough Instructional Television Users Replacement

The replacing

The replacing innovator

exploiter

Exploitation-----------+----------Inn ovation The enriching innovator

The enriching exploiter Enrichme·nt ( supplementary use)

The two axes of the typology run from supplementary use to replacement use and from innovative attitude to exploitative attitude. The first two terms are already familiar to the reader, and in the typology indicate the degree to which the user proposes to substitute televised instruction for live teaching or use it to enhance and supplement live teaching. For simplicity the supplementary users will be referred to as 'enrichers,' but no inherent value judgment is implied in that term. The term 'exploitative attitude' refers to the tendency to employ television because it 'pays off' for the user in one or more ways, among them time saved, blocks of time freed, undesired student contact avoided, administrative pressures coped with, and emergencies met. 'Innovative' use refers to the tendency to explore and experiment because this is in itself a satisfying activity, even though it requires more time and effort than established teaching methods. The exploiter is not directly interested in television as such; he uses it because it is there and convenient, like a desk telephone. The innovator is venturesome, searching out new ways of doing things almost for the sake of change, certainly for improvement,

72 / Test Pattern

whether convenient or not; he is interested in television as such. Exploitative use tends to decline when external conditions no longer press the teacher toward television; innovative use tends to decline only when change is positively discouraged, for example through the cutting-off of funds or facilities. There are four extreme positions in the typology: replacing exploiter, replacing innovator, enriching exploiter, and enriching innovator. Few, if any, Scarborough television users would fall into an extreme position; however, most will be recognized by those who know them, and by themselves, as falling clearly into one or another quadrant of the typology. Using the data available from the twenty-six personal interviews, a more detailed portrait of the four 'extreme' or distinctive positions in the typology is developed below. The Replacing Exploiter This type of instructional television user resents the fact that the college has elaborate television facilities. He frequently points to the many alternative ways in which the money might have been 'better spent.' He dislikes at least some of the television staff. He suspects any argument for expanded use of television in the college. Nevertheless, he has succumbed to various conditions and pressures, and has become an extensive user of videotaped lectures in at least one course - almost always a freshman course. This user tends to be less than admiring of student competence and attitudes in the lower undergraduate years. Avoidance of contact with these students and relief in his teaching load are important reasons why he is likely to go on using videotaped lectures even after it becomes possible for him to revert to live teaching. While he exploits television, this user generally fears its potential to replace his job. He would rather make poor television tapes himself than allow a more effective television teacher to usurp his role. Ironically, teaching is not what he enjoys most about being a professor, certainly not at the undergraduate level. He much prefers research, perhaps with a small group of graduate students. The fact that the replacing exploiter is rarely a natural television star only increases his ambivalent dependent/resentful attitude to television. Making and watching his own videotapes is an unpleasant, even traumatic experience. Thus he has not seen many of the lectures he has taped, and does not revise frequently. He especially avoids seeing his tapes while sitting with a class. Yet he is on the screen a good deal, reluctant to step aside and let visual material speak for itself. He is very suspicious

Faculty in a TV College I 73

of any suggestions to make his programs interesting, much less entertaining. This user expects students to take notes from his videotapes as from live lectures, and examines students on videotape lecture content. He does not use television for a variety of purposes, but largely for the replacement applications which have the highest pay-off for the time and effort involved. The Replacing Innovator This type of instructional television user appreciates the television facilities in the college because they enable him to retain yet modify the traditional lecture format. With videotape he can incorporate a wide range of new materials and methods into his lectures more effectively than he could by mounting a confusing array of projectors, screens, and devices in his classroom laboratory. Television provides a neat packaging of films, slides, field trips, laboratory equipment, and numerous other inputs of a modem, well-mounted lecture. However, his objective remains the traditional one of producing lectures or demonstrations which teach or train the students in the discipline. The replacing innovator usually enjoys using television; he finds it convenient, understands its technology to some extent, and feels competent in applying it. If the television staff restrict themselves to assisting him in developing better lectures or lab talks, he approves of them. If the staff try to push him toward other innovations beyond the replacement of his more onerous live teaching - that is, into areas where much more effort is required and the pay-off is slower or less - he will resist their interference with his academic controls. He is not concerned to enrich a course in the sense of making it more interesting, but aims mainly to teach the subject more effectively, so that his students will achieve a better mastery. Thus the replacing innovator is much less concerned with whether his students like his programs than with whether his students perform well in labs and on examinations. He sees his programs as parallel to a good textbook or lab manual. Television is one item in his repertoire of teaching aids, and he is not afraid of it. In fact, the successful production of a program as he sees it and as measured by student marks (but not by student 'enjoyment') is as ego-gratifying to him as the publication of a textbook popular with his colleagues. Although he incorporates a variety of visual materials into his lecture tapes, the replacing innovator remains on screen much of the time in his

74 / Test Pattern role as teacher. He expects students to take notes from the videotapes. He invests more time and effort per lecture than the replacing exploiter and is, therefore, much less concerned about unlicensed viewers seeing his programs. Also he enjoys seeing them himself, and revises them when necessary to keep their content up to date.

The Enriching Exploiter This user is typically not grateful for or enthused about television in the college, and would not have chosen to acquire the facilities if they had not already been there. However, since television is available and costing money anyway, he occasionally finds use for it to enrich his live teaching, but not to replace himself. He would not contemplate extensive use of instructional television, either because he genuinely feels television cannot present his subject matter as well as live teaching, or because of a concern that television might eventually displace him, or perhaps both. However, he is open to suggestions from the television staff and is willing to exploit television in small amounts in a wide variety of forms, providing it does not alter his overall academic approach. The enriching exploiter is not an innovator of educational techniques. His use of television essentially represents a dabbling in audio-visual aids, and occurs only when the advantages are obvious, the opportunities easy and at hand, and the effort and time required rather minimal. Basically he still prefers to talk to his students. Thus even when he does use audiovisual aids, including television programs, he feels compelled to introduce the material, or put it into perspective or otherwise interpret it, rather than assume that the visual material can speak for itself. He is not overly confident or at ease with new technologies and will rely on the television staff for advice, providing it is not too extreme. Distinctly unlike the replacing users of both types, the enriching exploiter does not expect students to take notes from televised material, and does not examine them on it. The televised material is supplementary, a frill. It rarely occupies even half of his lecture hour. Longer programs may be arranged outside the regular lecture periods, but are not intended to substitute for his own academic presentations. The enriching exploiter has no intention of letting television take over. Occasionally he may make a program himself, when a special subject matter seems appropriate to the medium and when there is a real likelihood of recognition for the work done. Only on these occasions will he take television seriously, and even then will not consider it a true rival to journal publication.

Faculty in a TV College/ 75 The Enriching Innovator This is the only one of the four types who is really keen on television. He is likely to be young, new in the academic world, highly interested in popular culture and media of communication, and not very strongly committed to traditional academic life. In fact, his colleagues are likely to regard him as 'soft on scholastic standards,' a 'student-coddler,' even an 'academic playboy.' He in tum is likely to be impatient with abstract research whose relevance escapes him, and may be innovative to the point of recklessness. Change for its own sake fascinates him; he may have illusions about being on the wave of the future. The enriching innovator uses television to make his course more interesting and attention-getting. He believes in experimenting not only with television and his subject matter, but with the process of education itself. He may not be highly competent with television, but he recognizes its impact on education and culture and feels he must master the challenge. He may do this indirectly, by cultivating close associations with television staff and/ or by encouraging his students to use television within his courses. He enjoys television programs and watches a good deal more television in his own time than any of the other three types. The enriching innovator doesn't necessarily spend much time and effort in applying instructional television to his course. He may rely heavily on dubbing, which has the advantage of filling up lecture time, making it more interesting, and at the same time reducing the amount of preparation he must do for the lecture. On the other hand, this type of user may happily spend extra time in producing, or more often assisting students to produce, useful television programs for teaching purposes. He is not primarily concerned with publication recognition for these productions. He is generally more interested and involved in teaching than in research. The enriching innovator, like the enriching exploiter, does not expect students to take notes from television material, nor does he examine on it, but his reasons are different. The enriching innovator takes televised material seriously (much more so than the exploiter) but believes it can speak for itself and remain in the memory without notes. As for examinations, he probably doesn't believe in them anyway. This type of user would strongly argue for television facilities in the college if they were not there already, and can be counted on to promote expansion in their use. He gets along well with television staff because he recognizes their expertise as professionals in an important new medium. He is not at all concerned with his rights over most videotapes.

CHART 2 A Typology of Scarborough Instructional Television Users Factor Favours TV in the college Friendly with TV staff Uses TV a lot Uses TV in wide variety of forms Not fearful of TV replacing him Considers 'interest' important in course Not concerned with personal payoff Does not wish notes to be taken from TV material TV material not tested On screen rarely Not usually worried about 'rights' In class during TV showings Finds TV use egogratifying Includes students in TV productions

Enriching Innovator

-------

Replacing Innovator

--------

Enriching Exploiter

------

--

---

Replacing Exploiter

-------

Factor Resents TV in the college Not friendly with TV staff Uses TV occasionally Uses TV in only one or two ways Fearful of TV replacing him Distrustful of making TV course 'interesting' TV must pay off in time saved Expects students to take usual notes TV material examined On screen a lot Concerned about territorial rights Rarely in class during TV showings Making TV is egoshattering Does not include students in production

--.l

'°'

-~ ~

(1)

3

Facuity in a TV College / 77

The most salient and distinctive characteristics of the four 'extreme types' in the typology of users are contrasted in chart 2 by summarizing the typical data from the twenty-six personal interviews with television teachers and supplementary users at the college. It should always be kept in mind that the chart and the typology are an experimental sociological model, not a specific description of any single professor or group of professors. The direction of the arrow under each type indicates the tendency toward each characteristic for that type of user. A straight line indicates that no tendency in either direction was observed.

6 STUDENTS IN A TV COLLEGE

In chapter 2 it was noted that research on instructional television and its effect on students concentrated largely on comparative studies of student per/ormance after live and televised teaching. Very little attention has been paid to the attitude of students toward instructional television. Of course, until recently university faculty were not obliged to pay much attention to student attitudes toward any academic aspect of university life. Even today only a small minority of professors co-operate with students in arranging anonymous student evaluations of the professors' teaching methods. College teachers rarely observe each other in their teaching roles, yet they have generally maintained the right to evaluate their colleagues' abilities to perform those roles. The evaluation of the students who experience the teaching role at first hand has received less consideration for a variety of reasons, including the attitude that students have much less at stake than the teachers, and the belief that students are less mature and competent assessors of these matters. In the traditional philosophy of the university, students must pass through the apprenticeship phases of the academic guild, demonstrate the required journeyman abilities, and finally produce a master work before they are accepted as peers of the masters of the guild. Until that time, the masters are clearly the most competent judges of which courses should be required for which degrees, and in what order, or year, and with what teaching materials and tests of · performance. It followed naturally from this academic guild philosophy that when television was to be introduced as a teaching method, it was felt that 'responsible academics' could best decide how it should be used, despite the fact that they personally and collectively had much less experience with the medium than their students. The guild would decide which courses or parts of courses would be televised, and in what format, and

Students in a TV College / 79

with what tests of effectiveness. Thus the college did not question the rectitude or advisability of orienting students toward the new medium of television rather than consulting them about its introduction. For that matter, while some senior academics were certainly consulted, newly arriving teachers also were oriented rather than consulted. 1 The whole framework of the General Arts and Sciences Programs was built on the philosophy of the academic guild, with its careful structuring of scholastic progress through a series of required subjects and interlocked options. When it was decided that certain courses would be offered only on television, no administrator or teacher took the role of student to discover what it would be like to experience several hours of videotape a day. Even now the guild mythology lives on, for some educators are still prepared to estimate how many hours of videotaped lectures students may reasonably be expected to accept. Among the fourteen television teachers, for example, six felt that two televised lecture hours a day was reasonable; two thought three hours reasonable, and one accepted four lectures a day. Four of the fourteen thought fifty-minute tapes without breaks were acceptable, and three would limit tapes to forty minutes without a break. The supplementary users largely rejected televised lectures, and only three of the twelve thought programs should be longer than thirty minutes. On these questions, the supplementary users were much the closer to student attitudes. The anonymous faculty questionnaire asked whether students should be consulted before a course was offered only by televised lectures. Eleven respondents replied 'No'; almost all were in the science division. However, faculty willingness to impose televised courses has declined in the college since its early years, when almost all first-year science courses were videotaped. In the anonymous questionnaire only three faculty members (still all in science) felt a student could reasonably be expected to enrol in five courses (that is, his whole year's work) in which most or all of the lectures were televised. Three in science and two in humanities thought four such courses would be reasonable. No one in the social sciences was prepared to expect students to enrol in any televised courses at all. It was well known in the research literature by 1964 that students at I/Note that the 'Beckel Special' (chapter 2) was intended for orientation of staff and students (Television Committee minutes, letter from H.K. Davis, 6 September 1968). Even 'orientation' is perhaps a euphemism, since the operational approach was one of rather high-pressured conversion, in which statements such as 'many lecturers go from no experience to remarkable TV skill in about one month' were rashly made (Canadian University, May-June 1966)

80 / Test Pattern the university level were the least enthusiastic of any students about instructional television. 2 There was some evidence, however, that students learned just as well from instructional television whether they liked it or not. It was the original position at Scarborough College that students would have to learn to like television, because other considerations of economy and shortage of staff carried more weight than student opinion.3 By 1967, however, times had changed. A far-ranging study of undergraduate instruction in the Faculty of Arts and Science was under way. A submission to it by the College Student Society said that the majority of students found TV teaching 'cold and impersonal.' This statement got press headlines in February 1967, and precipitated the first public speculations that the Scarborough TV College experiment was failing. The Abbey study of June 1967 attempted to reverse the trend with its conclusion that most faculty and students were still willing to give TV a try,4 but as noted in chapter 2 the faculty revolt was already brewing. This, much more than any student reaction, would spell out the fate of the experiment. The problem of 'cold and impersonal' televised instruction had been considered by a subcommittee of the Committee of Presidents of the Universities of Ontario. Its report, made in 1965, had concluded that television could actually appear to increase personal contact between student and professor. The subcommittee cited its own experience at a McMaster television lecture: 5 Most forcibly we were struck by the fact that, watching the projected image of the professor, we felt as close to him as though we were sitting on the other side of his desk. As a viewer in the auditorium you can see every flicker of expression; you never miss a word that the lecturer says, even if people are coming in late, so that the continuity is not broken; you can see what he writes on the blackboard ... with perfect clarity; most important, he is looking 2/W. Schramm and Godwin Chu, Learning from Television (Washington: National Association of Educational Broadcasters, 1967) , p.61 3/See quote, p.12: 'I have assumed we can no longer afford this attitude .. .' 4/Dr Abbey's findings with respect to students, of whom one hundred in televised courses and sixty in non-televised courses responded, were similar to those for the faculty in most respects. The students were willing to give TV a try, but expressed criticism of its disruption of the normal lecturer-student relationship. The students also believed quite strongly that professors should be required to take formal training in television use, and that instructional television contributed to student passivity. ('Staff and Student Attitudes to ITV at Scarborough College,' June 1967, pp.9-10) SI University Television, Supplementary Report of the Committee of Presidents of Provincially-Assisted Universities of Ontario (University of Toronto Bookstores, 196S), p.10

Students in a TV College I 81 straight at you, and you follow his thought through the combination of expression and voice. It is not impersonal in the slightest. Everyone knows the difference between the atmosphere in a class of 20 or less and that in a class of 40 or more ... Television (we realized to our surprise) brings back the intimacy of the smaller group.

This effect is quite possible when television lectures are an occasional rather than a steady experience, and when the lectures are made with considerable care and effort by teachers who are enthusiastic about television. In contrast, when the quality is indifferent and the producing professor's personality is not one likely to be enhanced by the effects of television, a more personal and intimate contact may actually tum students off the teacher more rapidly. Respect, which depends on the professor's social distance from the student, is undermined by the penetrating eye of the television camera.

SURVEYS OF SCARBOROUGH STUDENT ATTITUDES TO TELEVISION: THE GRADUATES

The first survey for this report was made in June 1970. Every member of the graduating class, 350 students in all, received a three-page questionnaire together with a stamped return envelope. One hundred and seventy-eight completed questionnaires were returned, and 130 of these came from students who had been enrolled in one or more courses taught by videotaped lecture during the 1967-8 to 1969-70 academic years. Fifteen returns were from students who had experienced only the supplementary use of instructional television; the remainder reported no experience of television in the college. It is very probable that most of the non-returning students had little or no experience of television, as the most experienced students were the first to reply while the last returns were largely from students with no experience. The 130 graduating students of 1970, with experience in nine televised courses in the college, shared a total of 403 enrolments in these courses and reported 585 ratings of the sixteen television teachers. They are the most experienced group in instructional television the college is ever likely to produce, and are therefore the most important student group surveyed for the present report. Eighty-five of the 130 television graduates were male, 123 were twenty-four years of age or under, and 122 had attended Scarborough for all three years of their arts or science program. Thirty-two were in

82 / Test Pattern TABLE 6

Overall Average Grades Among 130 'Television Graduates' Standing

in both first and second year in first, B in second in first, A in second B in both first and second B in first, c in second c in first, B in second c in both years c in first, o in second o in first, B in second o in first, c in second D in both years A A B

Standings not reported

Total

Number of students

1

2 2

24

2 37

21

3 10

14 4 10

130

humanities, 33 in social science and 61 in science (the remainder did not report a division). The overall average grade of the students in their first two years is indicated in table 6. (The students did not yet know their third year average.) There is no significant correlation between the number of courses taught mainly by television reported by the student and his overall average grade or class standing. The average number of television courses for the whole group was just over three each. The top five students reported twenty-two courses among them. The largest group, the thirtyseven students who had c in their first and Bin their second year, comprised fourteen reporting from five to eight televised courses each, two with three courses each, seven with two courses, and fourteen with only one course. A belief certainly existed among some professors (but by no means all) that students in certain courses had suffered in examination performance due to televised teaching. It would be impossible to collect evidence now (if it ever was possible) to test this belief conclusively. Too many variables are involved, including the question of whether certain courses ( and even the college itself) originally tended to attract lower-standing students, to what extent failure rates varied according to differences in teaching techniques and examinations, and so forth. The experience of one television teacher, reported in an interview, is interesting in this connection. Believing that his students might have

Students in a TV College I 83 suffered because of his difficulties in teaching as well with the new medium as he did live, he passed thirty-five students who obtained marginal failing marks in the course. The following year thirty of these students failed again in the same subject at a more advanced level. Even this proved nothing. Was television to blame anyway, because the students had obtained a poor grounding in the subject? Or were these students inferior regardless of television, so that their failure, which had been arbitrarily averted in the first year, was established in the second year, when the teaching was live? Needless to say, the belief that student marks suffered because of television lectures goes against the conclusion of hundreds of controlled experiments reported in the literature of educational television (referred to in chapter 2), but this fact has not prevented some college members from continuing to blame TV when low marks occurred. To the extent that most controlled experiments use televised lectures which have been elaborately made for the purpose, and also reap the benefits of the Hawthorne effect, it might well be true that the everydaymodel of videotaped lecture produced in the new Scarborough studios provided students with an inferior standard of teaching which was a causal factor in low marks in televised courses. But in this case the conclusion must surely be, not that television teaching causes lower marks, but that television badly used does so. This would be true of any type of inadequately prepared teaching in any medium, to the extent that teaching methods affect learning at the university level. To examine the relationsh~p between a student's grade in a particular course and his attitude to television, a detailed test was performed. We compared the actual distribution of student ratings of television teachers as 'good' or 'poor' with the distribution that would be expected on a purely random basis. Suppose that forty of the fifty students rating Professor x describe him as a 'good' television teacher. Suppose there were twenty-five 'B-or-better' students in the class, fifteen 'c' students, and ten 'o-orpoorer.' Then if there is no correlation between the grade a student received from Professor x and his evaluation of Professor x as a television teacher, the proportion of 'good' ratings coming from B students should be the same as their proportion in the whole class, or fifty per cent ( 20 of the 40 'good' ratings). The same would be true of the other ·grades and other ratings. A comparison of the expected and actual frequencies was performed for all the television teachers rated by the graduating students, and no significant correlation was found between grade received and rating given.

84 / Test Pattern

Slight but not significant variations in the data for two professors were in the direction of higher-grade students giving a lower rating to the professor than he received from lower-grade students in the course. In general, however, graduating students appear to have been able to rate the television capabilities of their professors without being overly influenced by marks received. This is not to say that no student was affected in his attitude by his mark, but that the tendencies in one direction were cancelled out by opposite tendencies. Another indication that the graduating students as a group were sufficiently discriminating in rating their experiences of instructional television is found in the quite varied ratings given to different professors engaged as a team in the production of a single course. In the case of professors rated 'good' users of television, both B and D students in the courses agreed on this rating. On the other hand, students of all grades agreed on the low rating given to certain professors in teams. Thus considerable confidence can be placed in the assessment made by the graduating students of the quality of instructional television produced by each of the television teachers. Five of the sixteen were rated as 'good' by at least half of the respondents reporting on them. One professor outdistanced all others with forty of the forty-eight students rating his performance on television 'good,' and many wrote in even more complimentary comments. Eight of the television teachers were rated 'fair.' Three were rated 'poor' by at least half of those rating them, and one of these three was considered so unsatisfactory on television that no student rated him 'good,' five rated him 'fair,' and thirty-seven rated him 'poor.' In this case, written comments indicated that the professor did not impress his students as an effective teacher in live lectures any more than on television. There was no obvious relationship between a professor's attitude toward instructional television, as assessed by the author in interview, and his performance on television, as assessed by the students. One of the lowest-rated television teachers was quite favourable to instructional television and invested much effort and time in his lecture tapes. Three of the five best-rated teachers were strongly favourable to television, but the other two disliked videotape lecture production and certainly did not exceed the factor of three in their investment of time. Yet the personality of these latter two teachers made them warm and communicative on television. Written comments about the ratings given by students were requested in the questionnaire, and the range and variety of these further indicated

Students in a TV College I 85 TABLE 7 Television Graduates: Overall Average Grade in Each Year and Percentage Rating Television Teachers as 'Good' Users of the Medium B standing or better

First year

o standing N = 29 49% N=7 62%

N = 31 45% N = 76

Second year

48%

the ability of students in the 1970 graduating class to assess the performance of a professor on television independently of his other abilities. In several cases teachers were repeatedly rated as 'fair' or 'poor' on television, but 'much better live.' Among the television graduates, there is no significant correlation between the overall average grade obtained by the student in either first or second year and his tendency to evaluate his television teachers as good or poor in their use of instructional television. That is, the television graduates did not automatically blame television for a poor overall standing, nor credit it for a good standing. If anything, the reverse was true: loweraverage students may have liked television more than higher-average students, but the pattern was not definite enough to support a conclusion (see table 7). Ratings of the sixteen television teachers as good, fair, or poor, did not vary according to the division in which the graduating students' major subjects were concentrated (table 8). (Five students replied 'don't know.') TABLE 8 Ratings by Television Graduates According to Division Total Ratings Division

Good

Fair

Poor

Sciences Humanities Social Sciences

155 18 25

167 12 15

159 12 17

198

194

188

Total (580

+ Selk)

86 / Test Pattern TABLE 9 Total and Percentage Ratings by Television Graduates According to Extent of Experience of Televised Courses Low experience 1 to 3 courses

Rating

55 (38%) 47 (33%) 41 (29%)

Good Fair Poor Total (585) NOTE:

143

High experience 5 to 8 courses

143 (33%) 149 (33%) 150 (34%) 442

No student experienced four courses.

As table 8 also demonstrates, the ratings by the television graduates were quite evenly spread across the three categories of quality of television use. The number of televised courses which the graduating student had been exposed to during his three years did not significantly affect his tendency to rate television use as either good, fair, or poor. This is a further demonstration of the ability of the students to discriminate between various kinds of television instruction, no matter how little or how much of it they experienced ( see table 9) . The graduating students reported several hundred specific favourable and unfavourable criticisms of the techniques used in their televised courses. In addition, they were asked to rate professors who had used television as a supplementary audio-visual aid but not as a lecture replacement. Twenty-one professors were rated for this type of use. When the author contacted some of these professors for an interview, eventually selecting twelve as representative of the whole group, several could barely remember having used television in their courses. They did eventually recall one or more special uses, but had placed little emphasis on them. The students seem to have been left with a much stronger impression of the material illustrated by the occasional use of television in class than have the professors concerned. The graduating students viewed supplementary use of television much more favourably than its use as replacement. Fifteen of the twenty-one reported supplementary users were rated 'good' in their use of television, compared to five of the sixteen television teachers. Of course, students had much more opportunity to assess a television teacher's methods than the occasional supplementary user's, but there was no doubt about which kinds of uses they preferred. The students' comments strongly indicate

Students in a TV College / 81

that they favoured instructional television much more for the illustration, enhancement of interest, and enrichment of courses than for replacement of the live teacher. Thus, when the students were asked to rate various advantages or disadvantages of instructional television, their responses were about evenly balanced, _with eighty 'advantageous' references and ninety 'disadvantageous'; the students were neither strongly for nor strongly against television. But the advantages listed were not those which led the college to invest heavily in television in the first place. The most frequently noted advantage was 'adding interest to a course with occasional use of television for lab demonstrations, special lectures, etc.' ( twenty-eight references). The only advantage of videotaped lectures referred to frequently by students was the possibility of replay for review before examinations ( eighteen references). Such replays were often arranged when requested by five students or more. On the other hand the most noted disadvantages were that 'TV teaching requires special skills most professors have not learned' ( twenty-one references) and 'Lack of personal contact with classes may cause professors to go too fast or too slow in televised lectures' ( twenty-three references). Only students actually experienced in televised instruction were included in these assessments; these are not the uninformed opinions of students who have never had a television course. Many of the specific complaints of the graduating students about videotaped lectures could be summed up in succinct comments from two questionnaires: 'Television needs commercials!' and 'You can't stop the prof.' By the former comment the student meant that he or she was accustomed to frequent breaks in the flow of a television program, with opportunities to suspend attention briefly and then return again. Whether this need is merely one developed after twenty years of socialization by commercial television in the home, or whether it is more fundamental to the nature of television, is not yet clear in existing research. There is not the same need for breaks during an hour-long movie. McLuhanist theory would explain the difference in terms of the 'cooler,' less sharply defined nature of television, which demands greater completion and involvement by the viewer and thus exhausts him more rapidly, but the author is not aware of any experimental verification of this suggestion. 'You can't stop the prof is a protest commonly made in various terms by the students, and refers to the bottleneck of information comprehension which occurs when the viewer, for whatever reason, misses a crucial point in the lecture. For several minutes thereafter, and sometimes for the re-

88 / Test Pattern TABLE 10 'Good' instructional television

'Poor' instructional television

relaxed, easy-going prof lively humorous lots of visuals conversational straightforward organized used models, charts clear diagrams on screen Jong enough confident prof prof improved during year well paced novel ideas and uses entertaining style

prof Jacked enthusiasm prof scared of television too fast monotone voice nervous prof confused presentation too many symbols flashed diagrams too fast mickey mouse material immobile prof too formal prof read his notes arguments hard to follow same background all the time prof looked dead

mainder of the lecture, the student is lost, unable to recover the logical sequence of reasoning by which the professor moves on in his explanation of the topic. At such times, student background noise in the classroom rapidly mounts to a crescendo, making the return to comprehension that much more difficult. The noise may be considered a protest, effective with a live teacher but useless in a situation where the videotape grinds remorselessly on. Among the most approved qualities of videotaped lectures mentioned by students were the visual clarity of graphs and diagrams compared to blackboard work in the classroom, the better possibility of hearing the professor, closeups of demonstrations, and the superior organization of lectures presented on television. A summary of the most commonly used adjectives and phrases for describing 'good' and 'poor' users of television is shown in table 10. From the careful and detailed assessment of instructional television at Scarborough made by these 130 students representing the experience of 403 enrolments in televised courses plus numerous experiences of supplementary use of television, it is quite apparent that the 'TV College' approach did not succeed splendidly, but, on the other hand, for them it was no disaster. Despite their many criticisms and their obvious preferences for other kinds of television, these students rated the majority of their videotaped lecture courses as either 'good' or 'fair.' This was true both of

Students in a TV College I 89

the professors concerned (thirteen out of sixteen) and of the courses (395 of 585 ratings). Of course, we are relying on the 'survivors' for the assessment; there is no way of knowing now what the many students who did not complete televised courses would have said of them, but one can imagine. In some cases, failure rates in these courses exceeded one-third of those sitting for the examinations, and in one case failures exceeded 50 per cent. Perhaps this report contains mainly the opinion of students who would have made it anyway, no matter what the form of instruction. A skeptical attitude should also be maintained toward data collected by questionnaire. Nevertheless, these students reported the majority of their televised instruction as being acceptable. The following comments were selected from the many made by graduating students surveyed in June 1970. All reported enrolment in at least one fully televised lecture course. After staring at the TV screen for half an hour without a break, your eyes get tired, you lose interest, and you stop taking notes. More concentration is needed just to listen. Remember that students are used to highly professional productions and have long years of experience in TV watching. Disinterest in a TV lecture is highly contagious. Why doesn't the professor get off the screen and illustrate his points? Anyone would think they're star-struck or getting paid for screen time. Professor x did a great job, even the music with his programs was impressive. Professor Y is marvellous in person, but terrible on toned, merely dictating a lecture.

TV,

deadpanned, mono-

What do you do after the camera leaves the blackboard and turns back to the Prof? In a classroom you can go on copying what he's written. Professor z had professional TV experience. He used TV to preserve events and do interviews that couldn't possibly be repeated each year. These tapes are of irreplaceable value. I didn't even notice Professor x was on front of him.

TV

as he talked as if we were right in

Generally speaking you do not reach more people in a large class by TV - you lose more through failure to go to classes, disinterest in watching 'canned' professors, and inability to concentrate on the small box for long periods.

90 / Test Pattern THE UNDERGRADUATES

In October 1970, approximately one in every three undergraduate students enrolled in the second, third, and fourth years of the college was mailed a questionnaire of three pages, similar to that used with the graduating students. At the time of collation, 128 of the approximately 500 questionnaires sent out had been returned. Later returns did not vary from those already received, and it was again clear that early returns were made most often by students with the greatest experience in television, while the last returns were by students with no such experience. Eightysix students reported enrolment in at least one televised course. The returns of these eighty-six students reported a total of 341 ratings of thirteen teachers in a total of 218 enrolments in eight courses taught largely by videotaped lecture or demonstration. The average number of television courses experienced by the science students was about seven compared to two by social science respondents, and one by humanities students ( see table 11). The humanities respondents tended to be much more approving in their ratings of videotaped courses than the social science students, and even more so than the science students. This shift away from the pattern among the graduating class of 1970 was no doubt due to the replacement of the compulsory General Course pattern by the extensive opportunities for course selection in the New Program. However, in the science division certain courses such as ma!hematics continue to be prerequisites for many other courses; hence a compulsory pattern continued so far as these courses were concerned. It was some of these prerequisite and heavily enrolled courses that continued to be available to freshmen only by televised lecture. The eighty-six undergraduates with videotaped lecture experience will be referred to hereafter as the television undergraduates. Fifty-five of the eighty-six are males; thirty-nine are in their second year at the college, and the remainder in third year. All but six are under twenty-four years of age. Thirty-four are majoring in science, thirty-two in social sciences and twenty in humanities. Twenty-two obtained a B-or-better average standing in their first year, forty-four a c average, eighteen a D-or--poorer, and three did not indicate a standing. The tendency to rate professors as good users of instructional television varied with the division in this group ( compare table 8) . The humanities students were more generous in their ratings than the other television undergraduates and more generous than any group in the television ·graduates. However, as already noted, their experience of television was the least among the ,group, and in the New Program most of these students

Students in a TV College/ 91

selected the one televised course they particularly wanted from among the non-humanities subjects, since only one humanities subject had been televised (and in the last two years it was partly taught live). Moreover, the humanities group showed much less tendency to shop around among courses in the other divisions. Their ratings referred to only four of the eight televised courses reported on by all students; the social science students were spread out among all eight, as were the science students. The actual number of televised courses experienced by the television undergraduates affected their ratings of television users little more than in the case of the graduates (compare tables 12 and 9). The 'good' ratings among the low-experience group were only 5 -per cent higher than in the high-experience group and, since the poor ratings were also slightly higher, these differences cannot be regarded as significant in relation to number of courses experienced. However, when associated with the previously outlined data, they indicate that while the actual number of courses experienced may not affect the student's approval or disapproval of television, on the other hand his opportunity to voluntarily select those courses from among options which are not 'essential' to his intended program of study probably does affect his view of instructional television. Naturally every student voluntarily selects his program of study, but once he has decided to major in science he has both a larger choice of televised courses and a greater difficulty in avoiding them. In the science division there is a tendency to interlock courses by prerequisites. Eightyfour per cent of the courses offered in the science division in the 1970-1 calendar had prerequisites, compared to 57 per cent in humanities and 44 per cent in social sciences. Three televised freshman courses in science were prerequisites to a variety of more advanced courses. Among the television undergraduates in second year in 1970-1, there is a quite marked tendency for students with higher average standings in all subjects to rate their television teachers more favourably than is the case with low-average students. This tendency is shown in table 13. Or, to put it the other way round, undergraduates with low average marks in their first year tended to blame television. They had experienced more television teachers, but the same number of televised courses. The B students reported a total of seventy-six ratings in forty-nine courses and the D students ninety-five ratings in thirty-one courses. That is, the twentytwo B students averaged about three teachers each in two courses, while the D students averaged almost five teachers each in two courses; in short, D students had more team-taught courses. Earlier in this chapter it was noted that this pattern did not occur

92 / Test Pattern TABLE 11 Ratings by Television Undergraduates According to Division Division

Number of students

Total ratings

Good

Fair

Poor

Science Social Science Humanities

34

259

78 (30%)

105 (41%)

76 (29%)

32 20

59 23

21 (36%) 14 (61%)

14 (24%) 6 (26%)

24 (40"/4) 3 (13%)

Total

86

341

113 (32%)

125 (37%)

103 (31%)

TABLE 12 Undergraduate Experience of Instructional Television and Rating Tendency

Rating

Low experience 1 to 3 courses (N = 63 students)

High experience 5 to 7 courses (N = 21 students)

Good Fair Poor

34% 36% 30"/4

29% 42% 29%

NOTE:

Two students experienced four courses.

TABLE 13 Second-Year Students' Ratings of Television Teachers According to Students' Overall Class Standing of B or o Standing

Total ratings

Good ratings

%

Poor ratings

%

B

average N = 22

76

38

50"/4

12

16%

D

average N = 18

95

24

25%

38

40"/o

among the graduates, whose ratings of television teachers were not significantly affected by their overall standings. The difference in the undergraduate response might be largely a function of the sample. That is, by chance more students critical of television among the lower-average group may have replied to the questionnaire. One factor predisposing the pattern in this direction is the 'survivor' factor noted earlier. Few D students from lower years are still enrolled in the third year. Among the undergraduate respondents to the questionnaire only one return was received from a third-year student with a second-year D average.

Students in a TV College I 93 Another important factor in the difference between the two surveys is the fact that fully one-fifth of the television graduate ratings refer to two very popular television teachers, whose ratings among the undergraduate respondents constitute only one-tenth of the response because both teachers are no longer on television at the college. On the other hand, the two teachers rated poorest by both surveys constitute the same proportion of the graduate response and the undergraduate response. Relying on impressions rather than on hard evidence, it might be said that there are two additional reasons why the undergraduates with a D average have 'blamed television' more frequently than the graduates. First, they have made the assessment after only one year at college. After completing three years, as the graduating respondents had done, their perspectives would be much broader and their judgment more experienced. They would be less likely to fault the teacher or the teaching method for a poor mark obtained. The fact that students have stopped blaming their teacher or his methods does not, of course, necessarily mean they have grown wiser or more mature. It may merely mean that the survivors are those who have resigned themselves to accepting the teacher's standards as the correct ones, or have been effectively trained to do so. They feel a poor mark must be their own fault, not the teacher's. Secondly, the attitude of the teaching staff toward television has become much clearer over the past several years. •Even those still using it are often openly antagonistic. Scarborough has ceased to be, or dream of being, a TV college. Quite the reverse - the experiment is widely regarded to have failed, even to have failed disastrously. It would be quite natural, then, for students obtaining low averages after enrolment in several televised courses to join those castigating the college's favourite scapegoat. Oddly enough, while overall standing may have affected the television undergraduates' judgment of their television teachers, the mark obtained from each teacher in particular did not appear to affect the judgment of that teacher. That is, when the 'actual versus expected frequency pattern' test was performed on the undergraduate responses as it was on the graduate responses, the results showed even less variation of rating according to mark than among the graduates. Only in the case of one television teacher did more 'poor' ratings come from D students than their proportion in the responding group might suggest. Moreover, the undergraduates showed the same ability as the graduates to distinguish sharply between different members of team courses. There was also a consistency of pattern of evaluation among the undergraduates and graduates which argues that their assessments of television teachers

94 I Test Pattern TABLE 14 Summary Table of Undergraduate and Graduate B-Average Students According to Tendency to Rate Television Teachers as 'Good' Percentage rating good Second-year undergraduates with first-year B average Third-year undergraduates with second-year B average Graduates with first-year B average Graduates with second-year B average

50"/4

N=22

40%

N=25

45%

N=31

48%

N=76

NOTE: Throughout this chapter, B standing includes the very few respondents with a B+ or A standing.

should be taken seriously. Table 14 demonstrates that between 40 and 50 per cent of responding students in each B-average-or-better group in each survey rated their television teachers as 'good.' A final indication of the validity of student evaluation was the fact that the same five professors who were rated 'good' users of television by the responding graduates were rated 'good' by the undergraduates, with the same teacher topping both polls. The same three television teachers were rated poorest in both polls. However, two of the teachers rated only 'fair' by the graduates were added to the 'good' list by the undergraduates, making a total of seven. As shown in table 15, responses to a question added to the undergraduate survey indicate that willingness to enrol in further televised lecture courses TABLE 15 Number of Future Televised Courses Undergraduates Willing to Enrol in According to the Number Already Experienced Number of videotaped courses already experienced

Number of respondents

1 2 3 4

38

6 7 Total

10 6 86 (2dk)

5

13

12 2

5

Number of future courses respondent is willing to enrol in 2 0 5 3 1 4 19 7 7 1 2 6 3 45

8 2 3

8 4

1 3 1 18

1

2 1 1

1 14

5

1

0

1 1 2

Students in a TV College I 95

steadily declines with experience of such courses. At each level of experience from one videotaped course to seven, about half of the respondents drop out, desiring no further such courses. A few would like most or all their five courses in a year to be televised. Here are ideal students for a TV college, but they are a very small proportion of the whole sample. Clearly the majority of respondents want the greater part of their teaching to be done live, and this majority grows as the students accumulate experience of videotaped lectures. For almost a quarter (nineteen of eighty-six) of the respondents, one televised course was enough. The undergraduates were about evenly divided in their listings of advantages and disadvantages of television instruction, just as were the graduates. They also referred most often to precisely the same items. Due to some comments about classroom noise in the graduate responses, a special question was added about this. The respondents divided evenly (forty-six to forty-seven) between those reporting that a member of the teaching staff was usually present during the replay of television programs, and those reporting the opposite. Surprisingly, very few more students though that distraction was increased during television programs with no teacher present (twenty-five to nineteen). Thus noisy television classes are by no means a universal problem. In another additional question, respondents were asked how long they thought they could watch instructional television before becoming too tired to learn without taking a break. The majority of respondents preferred thirty minutes or less. Only seventeen respondents felt videotaped lectures should run for the full lecture period. As in the case of the graduates, the undergraduates showed more approval of the use of occasional television material in a live lecture than of whole television lectures replacing the professor. In fact, of fortyeight mentions of the occasional use of television by twenty-two professors, only three occasions were rated as 'poor'! The most popular applications of television were lab demonstrations, films and dubs about events outside the college, and the graphic illustration (fifty-eight references) of lecture materials. The most appreciated effect of videotaped lectures was that they were better organized and more compact ( sixteen mentions). The undergraduates disliked the impersonal use of television, lack of feedback, and poor pacing ( eighty-eight mentions) . Generally they felt studio production of videotapes was 'good' (fifty-eight, compared to thirty-seven 'fair' and three 'poor'). Sound and monitor operation were also rated 'good' by a majority of respondents, but the large screen pro-

96 / Test Pattern jectors were rated 'poor to awful' by a majority. There were twenty-nine specific references to the large-screen projectors, indicating that many students, like professors, felt the poor functioning of this equipment reduced the effectiveness of instructional television in the college. Despite all the negative evaluations and criticisms of instructional television reported by the responding undergraduates with television experience, their ratings remained about the same, in general, as those of the graduates: about one-third 'good,' one-third 'fair,' and one-third 'poor' ( table 11 ) . They were a little less polarized in their assignment of 'good' ratings, spreading them among seven professors rather than five. H the B-average-or-better student may be taken as the standard good student in the faculty's estimation, then close to half of these students, whatever their year and in both surveys, rated their television teachers as 'good teachers'; when the 'fair' ratings were added, well over a majority found their television teachers acceptable. Scarborough students may well have found instructional television, especially the lecture replacement type, cold and impersonal, but they clearly have not rejected television as a useful medium of teaching, nor do they appear to consider the majority of the teaching staff as failures in using the medium.

7 THE FUTURE VISION

Scarborough College began with the magnificent vision of a TV college, promoted by a self-styled 'diode dean' whose faith was that 'whether we like it or not our hope for the spread of education in the future is technology.' 1 The vision faded and the dean departed. His opponents and all those who doubted or feared the new medium in the college classroom announced the failure of the experiment. The news of this disaster, to paraphrase Mark Twain, may be slightly premature. Certainly the expenditure of close to $3 million on television facilities and operations bas not been justified by the small number of students who have so far enrolled at Scarborough. These students could have been instructed adequately and at substantially less cost by entirely live lectures and demonstrations in a building suitable for that purpose. The college might also have avoided much faculty unrest had its television installation been limited to simple audio-visual facilities. Yet Scarborough College is much indebted to television for the lively consciousness which stirs its academic community. It was television, more than any other single factor, which in its early years gave the college its distinctive, even unique, flavour and special purpose. Television technology vastly affected the design of the building, the emphasis on modernity and innovation, and the palpable feeling of the place that it is 'looking to the future.' Scarborough College, with fewer than 2,000 students and 200 faculty, and in operation less than five years, today has the vitality to be talking of a future as a separate university. There is the same sense of destiny which characterized the early years of Glendon College (York University), but which has since died there; a sense of destiny which it is fair to say has never stirred such other University of Toronto colleges as 1/W.E.BeckeJ, 'The Fallacy of Hopkin's Effect,' mimeographed speech (no date) ,

p.2

98 / Test Pattern Erindale or New College. Television has been a tormenting but creative demon at Scarborough, an electronic elf in an enclave. This is not to ignore the numerous other important factors in Scarborough's communal consciousness, such as the building itself, or the effect of ·geographic isolation from the downtown campus. But without its early vision as a TV college, the place would never have had the same excitement. 'Fine then,' some say, 'give TV its due, but admit it didn't work, and turn it back to the university.' The original intentions for the studios always included the expectation that they would eventually become a cornerstone of the university's audio-visual facilities. Ironically, this intention is being fulfilled despite the failure of the college to exploit the studios fully. Yet the takeover of administrative and financial responsibility for the studios by the Instructional Media Centre does not necessarily imply the demise of a special commitment to television in the college. The building still remains one of the best-equipped for instructional television in Canada, and need not lose this advantage as monochrome gives way to colour television. 2 Today the originally intended use of television in the college, the replacement-type videotaped lecture, remains functional in only four courses. Even these will probably be phased out. It is unlikely that any new 'straight lecture courses' of the replacement type will be produced. However, the second originally intended function, the televised laboratory demonstration, is universally accepted by faculty and students in the college and much in use. No doubt one important reason for this is the fact that mechanical improvements involved in transference of demonstrated material to videotape are considerable, while at the same time the medium in this form does not challenge or basically alter any preconceptions about the nature of university education. In the lab demonstration the media force or cultural impact of television is minimal. The third most important intended function of the TV facilities - the enrichment of live teaching - has moved forward at a steady pace and promises to become the most important of the television functions in the next several years. An increasing number of college faculty members are showing an interest in this application of instructional television. The cultural impact of the medium in this form will be much greater than most of its professorial masters suspect; it will prove to be something of 2/The continuing powerful use of black and white in film by such directors as Ingmar Bergman demonstrates that there will remain many important uses of black and white in television. 'Living colour' is of no particular advantage in teaching situations where symbolism rather than realism is central to the learning process.

The Future Vision I 99

a sorcerer's apprentice. Even five- to ten-minute segments of televised enrichment in a fifty-minute lecture will begin to unleash the confusing and still little understood media forces about which so much controversy now rages in the literature of communications theory. The extent to which the nature of the medium as such is ignored or misunderstood in the college at present is indicated by a paper submitted to the Presidential Advisory Committee on the Status and Future of Scarborough College. 3 This 10,000-word document mentions television only twice. One reference notes that some students may have come to Scarborough after hearing about its television facilities; the other hopefully washes the college's hands of the subject with the statement: 'The university should take the television studios into its own list of facilities.' 4 The author, Dean John Colman, is not indifferent to television. Far from it. He has taken an active role in 'cooling out' the faculty unrest over television, has placed an imaginative academic in charge of the facilities, and negotiated the lifting of the heavy financial burden of television from the college. Yet it appears that his conception of the facilities is primarily that they are a thorny trouble spot in the college, a view shared by some other Scarborough administrators and teachers. Hence he has focussed too much on the individual personalities involved in the administration of the studios, and has tended to ignore the cultural and, most specifically, educational impact of television itself. The television studios will remain a trouble spot in the college until the prevailing conceptions of teaching and learning have caught up with the technological effects of the medium. An innovation producing repercussions as numerous and profound as those of television can be expected to shake, alter, and even destroy existing institutions. The first hopeful sign that the college may survive the television revolution will be when its faculty ceases acting as if the studios were a liability and begins to treat them as an asset. This is by no means an inevitable development. The degree to which influential faculty members still regard the studios as more of a liability than an asset is indicated by the total absence, during the proceedings of the Presidential Advisory Committee, of any definitive discussion of the role of television in the future of the college. Even the handful of known advocates have avoided suggesting that television could become a major focus of the special purposes and reputation of the college in coming years. No doubt some pro-television faculty 3/John Colman, 'Scarborough College, Some Possibilities for the Future,' September 1970 4/Ibid., pp.14,17

100 / Test Pattern members fear, quite realistically, that if they promote television they will be identified with the officially discredited TV college vision, now doubted even by its most ardent advocate, Dean Beckel. 11 As a result they may fear loss of support for any other position they may take in the discussions on the college future. Dean Colman's paper on future possibilities mentions such special purposes for the college as Canadian studies, part-time student programs, and closer liaison with high schools. 6 These are all areas in which the college has already made some worthwhile progress, but none of them has the potential influence which television could have in college life. Some suggestions will here be made on the directions in which the college might move toward making television a special purpose, but first the political realities must be considered. Are the college, the university, and the province willing to move in the direction of greater use of television in education at greater expense to the public, or can this medium be employed to a greater extent only if it saves money or at least costs no more than alternative methods of teaching? For the college, with its enormous problems of expansion and financing, the answer for the immediate future must clearly be that few of its leading figures will ·give much time or imaginative attention to the exploitation of the television studios. That is quite low on the current list of priorities. The establishment of the Instructional Media Centre and of a Presidential Advisory Committee on Instructional Media are hopeful signs that the university itself is finally, ten years after McLuhan's early pronouncements, becoming anxiously aware of the technological revolution in communications. But the university in tum must depend to a considerable extent on the province. Despite the current political controversy over the tax burden of education, there have been numerous indications of the willingness of the Department of Education to finance innovation in education. Although the department committed itself heavily to the replacement use of instructional television in approving the construction of Scarborough College, there is reason to believe this commitment has been accepted as a mistake, and that more emphasis now is being given to enrichment. In various speeches about educational television, William G. Davis, then Minister of Education and later Prime Minister of Ontario, took a strong stand in favour of innovations in this field which are more studentS/See appendix 3 of this report. 6/Colman, 'Scarborough College: Some Possibilities for the Future,' p.10 ff

The Future Vision/ 101 centred and enriching than teacher-centred and replacing. He has rejected the 'captive audience' approach so implicit in Scarborough's original applications of instructional television. Among Mr Davis's statements are the following: None of these [media] demand his [the viewer's] attention at any given or particular time. Most of these media will answer his needs when he makes the demand and not vice versa.7 ... let us never give hardware and methods precedence over human beings ...8 The opportunities for alternative channel viewing are very extensive in Ontario and ETV will not have any body of captive viewers among the general public.9 Frequently [television] will be intended as a part of a lesson so the teacher will provide the structure of the lesson. The television presentation may itself be either the beginning, the middle or the end, or even just a highlight of some point under study. 10 We regard educational television as an addition or supplement to the educational experience that must go on between teacher and student. We do not regard the potential of ETV as a replacement or substitute for the teacher in the classroom. Let us have this clearly understood because there are many people who make suggestions perhaps related to savings and investment ... we regard it as a supplement, an aid in the enrichment process ... this is one of the very basic philosophies concerning education and the use of this medium in the province of Ontario.11

As Mr Davis has admitted, 'in the field of educational television we are still all pioneers.' Many mistakes will inevitably be made, of which Scarborough's original plan as a TV college was one, in the author's opinion. Yet the college could still pioneer. It has not only the facilities but also an experienced and dedicated television production staff, a growing minority of teachers interested in television, and a body of students who, despite their strong criticisms of videotaped lectures, are still interested enough to respond to questionnaires with numerous suggestions for better uses. 7/Speech to the Motion Picture and Television Engineers, October 1967, p.4 8/lbid., p.6 9/Statement regarding educational television, Legislature of Ontario, 26 February 1968 10/Speech to the Motion Picture and Television Engineers, p.8 11/'Educational Television, the Future,' address to the OTP and ETV Branch Conference, May 1968

102 / Test Pattern The report on programs produced with Scarborough's $75,000 seed money indicates some exciting possibilities for television in the university.12 A great variety of programs was produced with this fund, but the college hardly scratched the surface of what could be done. Television is being used in education today with the same clumsy naivety of the Keystone Kops stage of film. Perhaps the most serious handicap is the failure to accumulate experience. Each producing professor starts almost from zero, since there is no systematic means by which the college studios can enable him to draw on the experience of others, not only those preceding him in production at Scarborough, but also those involved in commercial television and in the national educational television system in the United States. Nor is there any established catalogue of experience and production among producing teachers in Ontario or elsewhere in Canada. Why should a would-be instructional television user at Scarborough remain unaware of developments at other universities which could vastly affect Scarborough? Why should he hear of them only by word of mouth or by brief reports in the press? Mr Davis, as Minister of Education, observed: 18 ... as far as I am aware no one anywhere in the world has ever assumed the responsibility for gathering, indexing, storing and offering for use these newer [media] records the way the Library of Congress, the British Museum and our National Library have done for print.

Is this too bold a challenge for the University of Toronto? With its facilities at Scarborough as a good start and with a new research library soon to be completed, would this not be a worthy endeavour for Toronto and a major contribution to all universities in their efforts to come to terms with the revolution in communications media? Toronto has already become well known as the home of Marshall McLuhan. However, very little objective experimental testing of his insights and interpretations has even been carried out. With joint projects involving various disciplines in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities, Scarborough College would be the logical place to begin such testing because of its television facilities, modem laboratories, and excellent interdisciplinary academic contacts - all in a single communal building. Scarborough College has conducted a very large and effective extension program for several years. Many public school teachers and prin12/J .M. Kostash, 'Scarborough College Television Productions for the St George Campus,' April 1970 13/Statement regarding educational television, p.9

The Future Vision I 103

cipals are involved. Instructional television will be an important component of their work. The college could become a centre of experimental work in primary and secondary school applications of instructional television, and could provide vital experience and training in this field through its extension program. The facilities could also be used to provide teacherstudents with immediate feedback and self-critical assessments of their teaching styles. Some of the programs reported under the $75,000 seed money project indicate other important future applications of Scarborough television. In the sciences, for example, videotape could be used to standardize psychological experiments, and in the humanities it could be used to involve students in the learning of language.14 In the social sciences there are urgent tasks awaiting investigation, such as the impact of television on political, family, religious and other important Canadian social institutions. All of the foregoing speculations assume continued control of the television facilities by academics, and their application in research and teaching. Perhaps the most revolutionary impact of television in education has scarcely begun to be imagined. This is the use of the facilities directly by students for their own self-instruction. A whole pattern of events points in this direction. Educational theory in the past decade has shifted radically away from emphasis on teaching to a focus on the student and on learning. Indeed, it has been suggested that the existence of two separate terms, teaching and learning, misleads us into assuming that there are two separate processes when in fact there is only one. At the same time, students have demanded, and have already obtained to an extent, participation in the decision-making processes involved in their own education. Students are in many ways teaching the teachers, not least by evaluating the teachers' techniques. Students may soon have an effective voice in the actual hiring of teachers. Meanwhile a profound technological revolution in television itself is in the offing. Cassette television will alter our ways of thinking and acting with television as sharply as the introduction of the typewriter altered the processes of writing in everyday experience. Almost any student will be able to produce, edit, and collect his own videotaped programs. 15 He will not need the elaborate facilities of the 14/Kostash, 'Scarborough College Television Productions': programs produced by Dr J. Preston (p.6), Drama Centre (p.3), and Professors Gordon (p.9), Shek (p.6), and Ponomereff (p.7) 15/See 'The Good Revolution,' Life, 16 October 1970, p.47

104 / Test Pattern Scarborough studios which were used, for example, in the production of academic essays in sociology in 1970. 16 Rather he will be able to submit his essay or project, in many different subjects of study, in a televised form made with a minimum of equipment. However, the interest in visual culture produced by the cassette television revolution will also tend to bring many more college students into the studios seeking to make more elaborate team productions. The full effects on education latent in the future development of audio-visual media can no more be imagined at present than the effects of a comprehensive publicly-financed system of education could have been imagined a century ago. One probable effect of cassette television will be to take control of the medium out of the hands of the teacher and give it to the students. Videotape will cease to imitate textbook and will become student notebook. Combined with parallel technological developments in Super-8 film, in sound recording, and still-to-be-imagined inventions, the cassette television unit will enable the student of the 1980s to find audio-visual expression of his experiences and concepts as natural as handwriting for his elders. Teachers will have to become learners of the new technology, which few yet comprehend and many oppose as an anti-intellectual and antiacademic development. Teachers will find their overseer status in the schools challenged and probably overthrown. J.C. Adams observed: 17 Inexorably, televised instruction separates the roles of teachers and students in the interacting process of education. It becomes clear that the role of the teacher should be auxiliary to the learning of the students and that the primary responsibility for academic achievement rests squarely with the students. The greatest unused resources for educational advancement in America are the brains of our students. In this connection it seems possible that television might be used as an instrument to wean students away from immature dependency upon their instructors and to encourage their initiative, self-discipline, individual effort and unique personal growth.

Instructional television in the form of teacher-controlled lectures, or even as enrichment, has had little of the effect predicted by Adams, compared to what cassette television will bring. Yet here, once again, Scarborough College may find a 'special purpose.' Its faculty has shown 16/Kostash, 'Scarborough College Television Productions,' part one of the report, 'Student Productions' 17/J.C. Adams et al., College Teaching by Television (Washington: American Council on Education, 1958), p.16

The Future Vision I 10S more willingness to admit students to the Faculty Council and college committees than is typical of most 'downtown' units of the University of Toronto. Innovation in student use of television has already occurred there. Caleb Gattegno, whose interpretation of the educational impact of television varies somewhat from McLuhan's, argues that we are on the frontiers of a new visual culture. 18 'Sight, used by all of us so naturally, has not yet produced its civilization.' We do not yet trust the picture's thousand words, preferring to rely instead for our hard data on the few words of caption below the photograph. In coming decades, more and more of our analytical and data-processing activity, for which our brains are poorly equipped, will be assumed by computers. Knowledge will become less concerned with fact and more with feeling. Already a powerful 'counter-culture' is emerging in North America, emphasizing I-Thou rather than I-It relationship and knowing. 19 Sensitivity training and 'encounter-group' movements are increasingly part of the student culture. Television, with its immense capacity for effects, which in turn produce human affect, promises not only to enrich our knowledge, but to alter decisively the ways of knowing. Many disagree radically, even violently, with the predictions made in the past several pages; others accept them with deep regret and disapproval. Instead they foresee television creating an amusement-centred public circus mentality in knowledge and education. They refer derisively to the 'boob tube' and the 'idiot box.' Very well then, let those who see this prospect of a 1984 world of electronic surveillance, mindless amusement, and brainwashing meet the challenge of the medium now. Television will not go away simply because professors ignore it. The university must choose whether it will tame this powerful and unpredictable genie or become its servant and even its victim. The view of this author is obviously more optimistic. Scarborough College has been searching painfully during recent years for a new vision of its future status and role. It has sought some special purpose or destiny, some route to independent renown. In this author's opinion, television and its associated technology still offer the college its best opportunity for a valuable and unique contribution to the academic life of Canada. 18/Caleb Gattegno, Towards a Visual Culture (New York: Outerbridge, 1969) 19/See T. Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture (New York: Doubleday, 1969)

APPENDIX 1 Legal Rights and Videotape

The question of the legal rights of the professor and the college relevant to videotaped lectures and programs has been a controversial one since the college's inception. However, as already suggested in chapter 2, legal questions as such are not at the root of the problem. This view has been taken for several reasons. First, most academics are not particularly avaricious nor are they known for sharp business dealings. When a professor writes a book, publishes an article, or delivers an address, the royalty, fee, or honorarium involved is rarely large, nor is it one of his foremost concerns. As one faculty member put it, the income from his publications is 'pin money.' The motivation to engage in research and publication in the first place is generally interest in the subject matter combined with an ambition for renown and prestige, not wealth. Thus any questions of legal rights which have been pursued by Scarborough faculty members have tended to be raised from concern, not for direct compensation, but rather for job security. Academics are extremely conscious of job security, and have in tenure one of the oldest forms of this occupational benefit, which for most of the general public is a relatively new gain due largely to trade unionism. Videotaped lectures appear as a threat to the professor's job security because, with a relatively unskilled live substitute (the instructor or teaching assistant) and a series of taped lectures, a course can go on functioning in the absence of the producing professor. Even more threatening is the possibility that a professor will not be effective on videotape, and will be replaced on the screen by a professor who performs well. The alleged advantage of instructional television - that it can bring the best lecturers to more students - is hardly considered an advantage by the majority of professors who know they will not be among the fortunate best. These two possibilities are seen as undermining the professor's bargaining position with the college. University teachers have an outmoded and complicated method of finding and changing jobs in any case. 1 Much depends on word of mouth, a lucky break, a contact, and some astute but subtle bargain1/See. T. Caplow, The Academic Market Place (New York: Doubleday, 1963)

108 / Test Pattern ing. When teachers are in good supply, as they are at present in most disciplines, making a move from one position to another can be an exercise in delicate brinkmanship. The basic method of self-advancement is that of getting a better offer elsewhere. Then this offer is taken to your superiors with the implication that, unless it is at least matched, the offer will be accepted. It is very unwise to proceed without a solid offer, for college administrations and department chairmen are not easily bluffed. The implied threat of departure is effective only if it is likely that the college or department will have difficulty in replacing the professor concerned, and will need to do so to meet its curriculum commitments. If the college can make ends meet and bide its time for a year by replaying a series of lecture tapes made by the professor, its advantages in the bargaining game are greatly enhanced. Little wonder, then, that the professors whose bargaining position is often weak, especially among the junior faculty ( which means most of those at Scarborough) , are unwilling to hand this trump card to the college administration. The other major problem involved in legal rights is that of traditional territoriality of the classroom, noted in chapter 2. Television makes this territoriality almost meaningless by its very nature as a broadcast medium. Closed circuit television may be a technical reality, but it is something of a social fiction. Too many people are involved in the production of the tapes and there are too many possible opportunities for viewing them for closed circuit controls on videotapes to be regarded as anything more than a very leaky net. Of course territoriality itself, in its traditional form, is a social fiction, but it is one everyone has agreed to observe for a long time and one which is easily enforced in person. It is suspended under certain specifically defined conditions: when a public lecture is announced, when material is put into print ( not handwriting, in most cases), or when a professor makes it known that he doesn't mind a certain category of people dropping in on his lectures, such as students 'shopping around' during the first few weeks of session. Beyond these specific exceptions, the professor considers his classroom something of a sacred precinct. When members of a student union not enrolled in the course want to invade it in order to hold a teacher evaluation, he is likely to resist. If The Varsity reports news of events in his class, he burns with resentment. If a colleague or administrator were to sit in without advance clearance, an almost unheard-of intrusion, he would be filled with a mixture of anger and amazement, and would certainly protest. Imagine, then, the reaction of Scarborough faculty members when they learned by word of mouth that lecture tapes they had made in the television studios were being cut, collaged, and broadcast abroad at conferences and conventions! (chapter 2) Scenes were lifted out of context, careful lines of reasoning chopped up, all for the sake of 'boob tube' production.

Appendix 1 / 109 It is only against the background of concern for job security, effective bargaining power for advancement, and classroom territoriality that discussion of the legal rights relevant to videotaped programs in the college may be understood. In May 1966, the college promulgated an agreement setting forth the rights and obligations of the college and of professors in the use of television. The agreement in its entirety follows this introduction. As previously indicated, the Television Committee set up in the agreement did not function effectively. Items 1-6 and 1-7 were repeatedly violated, as must inevitably be the case with a medium like television. The result has been a day-to-day working arrangement by which the television staff are familiar with what controls various professors desire, and handle some professors much more gingerly than others. Adjustments under item 1-10 were made only for two clear-cut cases of tapes being replayed after the departure of the producing professor. No professor was compensated simply because he exceeded the factor of three (item n-4) on which the system was based; yet, as already indicated, a desire to produce effective instructional television would frequently compel the professor to exceed this factor. Formal documents were rarely signed when programs were actually produced in the studios, and most of the television teachers interviewed could hardly recollect what terms or understandings they had originally begun to work under. They were vaguely of the impression that they had the right to limit viewing of the tapes, to erase after three years or receive compensation, and had the obligation to permit the college to use the tape for three years, which, in every case but one, it had already done. No special compensation has been made for teachers whose tapes are now going into their fourth year of replay, other than the fact that they continue to reap the benefit of not having to lecture live.

AN AGREEMENT Setting forth the Rights and Obligations of the College and of Professors in the use of Television at Scarborough College in the University of Toronto May 13, 1966 PREAMBLE

The AGREEMENT which follows is novel in many respects. This Preamble is designed to assist the reader in understanding its form and purposes and, in particular, to explain some of the interests of a Professor, of a College in the University of Toronto, and of the University itself. However, the Preamble is explanatory only; it does not constitute a part of the AGREEMENT.

110 / Test Pattern The College recognizes that not only its professors, but also its television production staff, give talent and salaried time when closed circuit television is used for teaching. Nevertheless, unusual questions of legal and administrative relationships arise only in the case of professors. The television production staff is employed for the specific purpose of using television as a means of better teaching and of dealing with large numbers of students. While the creative talents of television staff are invaluable in achieving these aims, they are no more so than the services and inventiveness of laboratory technicians have traditionally been in the development of scientific research and teaching methods. Producers, artists, and technicians accept appointment in the University because they wish to carry out these specific tasks. It is not the same with professors. It will rarely be the case that a professor is employed solely to teach by television. In almost all cases professors will have research and teaching responsibilities to which the use of television is not immediately relevant. Moreover, university teaching is already conducted according to various well-established traditions in which television has had no place. The introduction of teaching by television cannot be expected to erase the existing relationships between university teachers and students, among teachers, and between teachers and university administrators. Although it is argued by some that the use of television creates completely new problems and opportunities, professors regard this assertion with suspicion, seeing it as the possible beginning of an attempt by administrators and politicians to reduce professors' rights and responsibilities as university-teachers. It has been asserted that 'the medium is the message,' but it must be the concern of the College.so to control the medium that the message is what the professor wants it to be. Thus the College's interest must surely be to ensure that the use of television puts chairmen of departments, deans, other faculty members, and university administrators in a relationship no different from that which has been worked out over many years of 'live' teaching in the University of Toronto. The fact that a lecture is recorded on video tape, and can be inspected in privacy if desired by other persons than the students for whom it was intended, must not be allowed to justify any diminution of the professor's present control of the use of his own intellect. After all, there are many devices, apart from television, which make eavesdropping easy, but it is not acceptable that the existence of miniature microphones and tape recorders should be held to justify their use to monitor what professors are saying in lectures. The administrative and legal arrangements proposed in this document are designed to secure the professor's position, therefore, since it is a vital part of the College's interest to do so. At the same time, the College cannot lose sight of the fact that the University of Toronto, with the support of the Province of Ontario, has financed the television installation in the College, and provides funds for its operation. The University may be expected to be interested in the possibility of widening the use of video tapes which the College makes for its own teaching. Closed

Appendix I

I 111

circuit television systems for schools or for Community Colleges might well be thought by the University to be suitable users of tapes produced at Scarborough College. It must be regarded as part of the College's interest that such use be facilitated. It might be argued, moreover, that since public money has gone into the recording of lectures and demonstrations, these should, where appropriate, be made available for broadcasting by educational television stations, or even over public networks, to make extension courses and adult education more interesting and effective.

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

•

It is convenient to divide the AGREEMENT into two parts, one providing for the General Administration that will govern the conduct of TV teaching in the College (both 'live' and on 'tapes') and the other setting forth the specific terms that will govern the production and use of tapes under those arrangements. However, as far as the use of tapes is concerned, the two parts constitute a single AGREEMENT; neither would stand without the other. In due course, no doubt, it will be desirable to cast an Agreement along these lines in more formal, legal language. However, there is much to be said for a preliminary experimental period during which experience can accumulate and comments can be taken into account. The College, being equipped with TV facilities, must start to use them: and therefore this text will form the basis of arrangements between it and those members of its staff who use these facilities. But it is not to be considered as final or immutable.

PART I

AGREEMENT GENERAL ADMINISTRATION

1 The Dean of the College ( subject to the general authority of the Principal) will represent the College in matters falling under this AGREEMENT. 2 A Television Committee will be established to exercise the functions set out in this AGREEMENT. It will be made up of 6 members of the College Faculty, elected by the College Council and of the following members ex officio: The Principal, the Dean, the Assistant Dean, the Director of Extension and the Director of Educational Communications Systems. The Dean will be chairman. A vice-chairman will be elected by the Faculty committee members from amongst themselves. 3 Both the professor concerned and the Dean must agree before any preparations are made for direct television production or for recording any lecture or demonstration on video tape. 4 In considering which courses, lectures or demonstrations should be televised the Dean will seek the advice of the Television Committee. 5 The Dean will also consult with the Chairman of the relevant academic Department of the University (or of University College) on the general propriety of the use of television for specific purposes. The professor

112 / Test Pattern

6 7

8 9

10

11

concerned will be expected to participate in whatever discussions normally take place in his Department on courses to be taught and methods of dealing with them. In his teaching by television the professor will be as free from interference as he now is in the lecture theatre. If any person whatsoever ( other than the students for whom the teaching is intended, the Director of Educational Communications Systems, and his staff) wishes to see a televised lecture or demonstration, whether 'live' or on tape, he should obtain written permission to do so from the professor concerned. The students for whom the teaching is intended may request 'replays' of tapes, and such replays will be provided, as far as reasonably practicable, by the Director of Educational Communications Systems. A professor who teaches by television ( whether 'live' or on videotape recording) will not be expected to mark more examination papers than would normally be produced by a conventional class in the department concerned. He is to be given sufficient help to reduce the burden of essay marking, test correction, etc. to the level accepted in conventional teaching. Adjustments in remuneration, leave and the balance of teaching load will be made if a professor spends more time in teaching by television (which, with preparation and recording, makes special demands on professors' time) than would normally be spent on conventional lectures, or if frequent use by the College of tapes which he has made necessitates his attending to course administration, seminars, etc. to an extent beyond the normal teaching load. When the professor and the Dean have agreed that a video tape should be made, they will sign a specific agreement based on this document and covering the specific points set out in Part n.

PART II

SPECIFIC ARRANGEMENTS RELATING TO VIDEO TAPES ( OR CINESCOPES)

The specific agreement referred to in Part I Para 11 will: 1 state the original purpose for which the tape or series is to be made, the educational conditions under which it is to be used, and the audience for which it is originally intended (e.g. 'Closed circuit Series Zoology 100 1967/68, Scarborough College; 30 45-minute tapes etc., OR Closed circuit Series Political Science 201 1968/69, Scarborough College; 52 45minute tapes; discussion groups of 20 meeting fortnightly, one taken by the professor'); 2 provide that the professor's specific consent be required before any tape is used for the first time in teaching or is withheld from such first use; 3 require the specific consent of the professor and of the Dean to any departure from the stated purpose, educational conditions or audience;

Appendix I I 113 4 5

6 7

8

9

10 11

12

give the College the right, once the professor has approved first use, to use the tape for its own closed circuit television teaching for three years ( subject to Para 8 below) ; provide that the professor must be given reasonable notice of any use of the tape under Para 4, that be (and only he) shall be permitted to edit the tape from time to time during the three years, and that he may petition the Television Committee, whose decision shall be final, for permission to erase or to remake the tape; give the College the right to erase the tape after first use, if it so wishes, unless the professor wishes to buy the tape under (Sa) below; provide for the College to use the tape after three years if it wishes, but only if the professor permits, such permission to be required annually while the professor remains on the College staff; provide for the following possibilities when a professor who has made a tape leaves his employment with the College: (a) that he may buy the tape from the College at a price to be agreed with the Dean or, if necessary, decided by the Television Committee; (b) that, if then the professor leaves the College before first use of the tape as envisaged in its 'original purpose' (Part 11, 1 above) the College may use the tape for one year, after which it shall be erased; (c) that, if the professor leaves after first use but less than three years after the original taping, the College may use the tape for its original purpose, or for any purpose subsequently agreed under Part 11 3, for one year after he leaves, after which the tape shall be erased; (d) that, if the professor does not wish to exercise his rights under (a), or the College its rights under (b) and ( c), the tape shall be erased forthwith. give the College the right to sell or hire out the tape or series to public broadcasting systems at prices and for purposes to be determined by the Television Committee, save that no such use shall be made without the professor's approval, and that the provision for editing shall apply as inPara5; provide that where use is made of a tape or series under Para 9, the College shall pay the professor the appropriate University of Toronto honorarium; give the College the right to make the tape or series available to closed circuit educational systems other than its own, at a charge to be decided by the Television Committee, save that no such use shall be made without the professor's approval, and that the provision for editing shall apply as in Para 5; provide that in cases of use under Para 11 the Television Committee shall determine the appropriate fee.

APPENDIX 2 Programs made at Scarborough Studios, 1969-70

FIVE LEGS R.D. Rodgers in discussion with Graeme Gibson, author of Five Legs (Department of English) 2 POETS ON POETRY R.D. Rodgers, Earle Birney 3 SABBATICAL An informal discussion of the merits of the sabbatical year, with R.D. Rodgers and guests: J. King, C. Hopen, H . Swain, and Dr F .A. Urquhart 4 POPULATION EXPLOSION C.E. Hopen exchanges views with Dr F .A. Urquhart and Dr I. Campbell 5 POLLUTION A program with Dr D .A. Chant (Department of Zoology) and members of Pollution Probe 6 DRUG ADDICTION Dr Butler and Dr Gibbons

Approximate time in minutes 34:20

1

7 8

CLASSICAL GUITAR WORKSHOP

Charles Ferguson

Guitarist

48 :30 34:00

36:00 Part I Partn

38 :00 31:00

Part I Part II Part I Part n

50:00 40:00 20:00 39 :00

Two interviews conducted by architect Harvey Cowan with: 1 Reyner Banham (Bartlett School of Architecture, London) 2 Lister Sinclair (CBC) 9 THE INCREDIBLE HULK A thesis contribution program by students in the Graduate Department of Architecture on the place of the University of Toronto in the city 10 MEDITATING THE MEDIUM A panel discussion of the place of television in education (Engineering Media Resource Unit) THE BAUHAUS SCHOOL

36:00 30:00 60:00

59:00

Appendix2 / 115 Approximate time in minutes 11

12

13

14

15 16 17 18

19

20

SOCIOLOGY A series of four essays for television produced by student groups: 1 Effects of drug use on interpersonal relationships Part I 59:30 Part II 60:15 60:10 2 A group experience (T-groups) 27:40 3 The rocking lung 27:50 4 As the world turns on (Department of Sociology, Professor J. Lee) SOCIOLOGY 50:00 1 Talking about pot: a three-part series to explore the • methodology of the social science interview each 2 The deviant career: a two-part series on male 50:00 each prostitution 3 A deviant role - the transvestite 50:00 (Department of Sociology, Dr R. Carlton) MEDICINE 1 John's gastro-intestinal tract (in English) 19:30 2 John's gastro-intestinal tract (in Spanish) 3 The endocrine system (in English) 25:10 4 The endocrine system (in Spanish) 5 An interview with Dr Charles Best 42:32 SCREENING PROCEDURES USED IN SCHOOLS 55:00 A demonstration by the School of Nursing, in co-operation with the Department of Health, including the testing of vision and hearing, inoculations, and vaccinations FIRST-YEAR NURSING Two discussion groups: 1 Pre-natal parents 39:00 2 Post-natal parents 47:00 SURGICAL DRESSING PROCEDURES TWO TASKS IN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY A demonstration ( Department of Psychology, Dr J. Preston) LE CANADA FRAN~AIS D'AUJOURD'HUI A series of 50:00interviews with prominent French Canadians 60:00 conducted in French by Professor Keith Spicer (Department of Political Science) VISAGES DE LA LITTERATURE CANADIENNE-FRAN~AISE 50:00 A series of interviews with noted French-Canadian each authors conducted in French by Professor B.Z. Shek (Department of French) HABLEMOS ESPANOL Three programs in a pilot series 28:00for first-year students in Spanish, with emphasis 44:45

116 / Test Pattern Approximate time in minutes on the spoken language (Department of Italian and Hispanic Studies, Professor Gordon) 21 SCENES FROM SHAKESPEARE Two programs by first-year students in English showing scenes from Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night, and Romeo and Juliet (Department of English, Professor G. Hamel) 22 RIDERS TO THE SEA A presentation of J.M. Synge's play by students of St Michael's College 23 THREE DRAMA CENTRE PRODUCTIONS 1 The Lover by Harold Pinter 2 Pending, an original television play by Tony Stephenson 3 Spoon River Anthology, a dramatic reading 24 THE MUSIC OF BOB DYLAN A program produced for use in a seminar of Professor M. McLuhan, 'Media and Society' 25 SHAKESPEARE AND LOVE A student presentation of scenes from four plays illustrating Shakespeare's varied expressions of love 26 STAR TREK A production of an original script for television (College of Education, David Clee) 27 HISTORY A two-part program with Dr Ricker and Dean John Saywell (College of Education) 28 SAFETY SEMINAR Instruction in safety procedures in the lab for graduate students in chemistry (Department of Chemistry, W. Childs) 29 VARSITY FUND Dr Claude Bissell in a special fund-raising appeal 30 GREEK COINS Impressions of Ancient Greece

50:00 each tape 23:00

60:29 40:00

40:00

ASTROLOGY IN HISTORY

(Department of Classics, Victoria College, Professor J. Boake) 31 PINDAR A program on the ancient Greek poet (Department of English, New College, Professor Visser) 32 THE POET, ESSENIN A discussion with Irving Layton and Professor Ponomareff (Department of Slavic Studies) 33 OPINIONS A series of interviews with eminent Canadian Microbiologists exploring behind-the-scenes aspects of microbiology in areas of ethics, philosophy, education, historical aspects

31 :40 43:20 22:0036:00

Appendix 2 I 117

of the Canadian Society of Microbiologists, bacteriology, virology, electro-microscopy, and other related subjects (Department of Hygiene, Dr V.V. Kingsley) 34 TECHNIQUES IN MICROBIOLOGY Eight demonstrations (School of Hygiene, Dr V.V. Kingsley) 35 MACROMOLECULES Five laboratories (Department of Biology, Merle Grant) 36 BIOLOGY Twelve lectures by Professor G. F. lsraelstam 37 38 39 40 41

METABOLISM Six laboratories (Department of Biology, Merle Grant) BIOLOGY Eleven lectures by Dr C. Sparling (Department of Biology) PLANT PHYSIOLOGY Six laboratories (Department of Biology, Merle Grant) CHEMISTRY Five laboratories (Department of Chemistry, Karen Henderson) CHEMISTRY Twelve laboratories (Department of Chemistry, Marvi Bradshaw)

9:0038 :00 5:00 each 26:0051:00

2:55-

17:30 36:4748:00 4:109:00 6:1012:00 8:0019:20

APPENDIX 3 In Memoriam

I am still convinced that the use of new media, such as television, is an essential part of the development of an improved learning experience. To reject it, to hide from it is irresponsible in the face of the need for expansion and improvement in education today. When I first advocated extensive use of television for teaching and learning at Scarborough College, I strongly believed what I have just said above but in addition I was convinced that use of new media to spread higher learning would be less expensive than conventional modes then in operation at the University of Toronto. I am now convinced that with the present curriculum at Toronto use of television won't save money. My first experience with television in teaching was in the Department of Zoology where large first-year classes were taught the practical elements of the discipline in large rooms. With even the simplest of television equipment instruction and demonstration were made available to the largest numbers, evenly, clearly, and dramatically. When the new technology of instant Polaroid Land projection slides was added to television microscopes, zoom lens, lifelike models and televised complex live demonstrations there was finally no need to keep from the student anything that was valuable for complete understanding of what was then to be known about zoology. There was, even in 1962, a vast literature of so-called experiments using television and motion pictures to present to students didactic elements of a variety of disciplines. Some experiments combined didactic presentation with seminar-tutorial discussion or with practicals. However done, evaluation revealed no significant difference between new and old methods of instruction. The advantage of the new was that the instruction could be transmitted to very large numbers of people. In the early '60s there were very large numbers of people who wanted, even demanded, instruction at the University. The rather inflexible curriculum at Toronto in the early '60s in the General Courses created in the first and second years of the courses subjects which would be taken by the majority of students in the course. With a projected

Appendix3 / 119 enrolment of 5,000 students for Scarborough College, assuming a stable curriculum (a mistaken assumption in hindsight) classes of 500 to 1,500 students could be easily predicted. Television was a logical method of presenting to large numbers of students the didactic elements of subjects where substantial didactic presentation was the norm. With adequate seminar-tutorial or practical reinforcement of the subject matter a satisfactory if not superior method of university instruction in the General Courses seemed at hand. This instructional philosophy applied particularly well to the natural sciences and social sciences both at the lecture and laboratory level. It also seemed reasonable to extend it to some elements of the humanities. A cost analysis, not necessarily with adequate emphasis on benefit, showed that use of television with fewer professors coupled with adequate tutors would save considerable money compared to the system in use on the St George Campus. If owing to the large classes it could profitably be done in the first and second years of a threeyear degree then truly there would be a major use of television at Scarborough College. A further examination of the literature and considerable practical experience in zoology suggested that television badly done was disastrous for good instruction. It wasn't that the results on examinations were so bad but rather that the attitude of the student toward the instrucion and by association toward the subject, even the professor, was bad. We resolved that the television production must be as good as possible within some sensible limit in dollars. The result was the large production studio, the four demonstration studios, the firstclass equipment, and the well-qualified support and production staff. I believe that all of these arguments stand today as sound. The variable we hadn't properly controlled was the professor as performer. We did try to understand that variable by a co-operative effort with a local television station to produce 20 or 30 half-hour programs simulating presentation of university level subject matter with the first of the Scarborough College professors as performers, or teachers if you like. These programs taught us something about minimally good television and the costs in time and money involved. They were aired to the general public and we learned something about what was well received and what wasn't. Generally the programs were a success. We concluded that, properly produced, almost any reasonably good professor in the old mode of presentation would be at least as good and often much better in the new mode by television. But the first professors at Scarborough were a uniquely dedicated group. As many more were added, mainly chosen by able department chairmen from the St George Campus and chosen within criteria traditional in respective established departments, a new attitude emerged. The attitude was a dedication to the excellence of teaching typical of the St George Campus of the University of Toronto within the particular discipline of the professor and within a straight mode, a recognition of the necessity of scholarship and

120 / Test Pattern publication, a tendency to orient toward the downtown department, and a reluctance to engage in anything as far out as appearance in front of a television camera. This was often coupled in tension with enthusiasm for a new Scarborough College curriculum and approach to teaching but with no confidence of any personal pay-off. The discipline, the scholarship, teaching in the straight mode were thought of as the essential requirements for promotion and tenure; after all these decisions were basically made by departments on the St George Campus. New teaching techniques with the time necessary to do them well were of secondary importance. It became increasingly difficult to get professors to present their subject on television. I slowly began to recognize a paradox: the best place to have tried the development of television or multi-media teaching would have been at a small remote undergraduate-oriented university like Trent, but even if it had succeeded there it wouldn't have been accepted at a place such as Toronto and therefore probably at very few other places. To ensure broad acceptance, the development had to be at a place such as Toronto where if it succeeded it would be accepted elsewhere. But at Toronto it wasn't going to succeed because of too well established antithetical traditions associated with a particular kind of excellence. I believe that it was a conflict of principles that caused the failure of the experiment in its early years. The rapid later decline in use was secondary and obviously associated with the new flexible curriculum and the elimination of large classes and therefore the relief from a requirement to use television. I focus on principles and not on people as the cause of early failure because some of the professors most opposed to any use of television on principle, when finally pressed into using the medium, produced some of the most beautiful and impressive teaching that I have ever seen. I know that there were other sources of difficulty: such as the protection of privacy of professors when captured on videotape, or the question of copyright, the question of when a program could be reused, and for how long, or who was the boss in the studio - the producer or the professor. These were and are important questions; but we were nearing real solutions to them. I don't think they were at the heart of the failure. There are others who will say television failed because the kids hated it. I don't believe that for a minute. I have talked to too many of them for too long to believe that. There were lots of things the students didn't like about Scarborough College in those early years and television was often said to be one of them. But conversations with the students usually brought out objections to being sent to Scarborough against their wishes, or conflicts with particular teachers, or difficulty with subject material. Only rarely was the criticism directed at the medium of instruction. But this I admit is subjective and comes from one who had a lot of himself at stake in the operation. The use of television, of movies, of audio tapes, of slides, of graphics, of

Appendix 3 I 121 models, of pamphlets, of books, of computers - all of these blended where they make their optimum contribution - must be the teaching and learning experience of the future. I only wish that our effort to come a little closer to that ideal at Scarborough College had been more successful. W. E. Beckel Vice-President University of Lethbridge November 25, 1970

INDEX

Abbey, Dr D.S., 28-30, 68, 80 academic guild philosophy, 78-9, 103-4 advantages of TV: student opinions, 87-8, 95; faculty opinions, see faculty attitudes to TV Advisory Committee on TV, 38 anonymous surveys: faculty, 66-71; student, chapter 6 assistant to dean for TV, 30-1 attendance of students at TV lectures, 64, see also discipline Beckel, Dr William, xv, xvi, 30-1, 100, appendix 3 budget for Scarborough TV, xvi, 3 cassette TV, 103-4 catalogue of TV, 64, 102 CFTO pilot series, 12-13 Colman, Dean S. John, 32, 38, 99-100 commercials, 87 commercial producer-director, 23 Committee of Presidents of Ontario Universities: 1962 report, xv; 1965 report, see University Television compensation to faculty for TV use, 26, 69; see also factor of three, publishing and TV copyright, see legal questions costs of TV, see budget, economics of TV, factor of three crash programs, xviii, 16, 26 data-density of TV, 52 Davis, Harry K., xvii, 15, 30-1, 35 Davis, William G., xvii, 100-1 dean of college: until 1968, see Beckel; 1968 on, see Colman director of TV studios: until 1969, see

Davis, Harry K.; 1969-71, see supervisor of studios director of educational communications, see director of TV studios disadvantages of TV, see advantages discipline of students, 55, 64, 88, 95 divisions of college, 48n; compared in use of TV, 66-71; compared in student evaluation of TV, 81-5, 90-2 economics of TV, 10, 44-7, 100-2, see also factor of three editing TV tapes, 41, 63 Educational Communications Committee, see Television Committee effect of TV on live teaching, 50, 53-4, 59 enrichment, see supplementary TV enrolment in college, 3, 5, 10, 44, 97 enrolment pressure on Ontario universities, xv entertaining lectures, see priorities ETVO (Educational TV Branch), see OECA expected/actual frequency test, 83, 91-3 exploiting TV, see typology extension teaching use of TV, 102-3 factor of three, 6-7, 26, 27, 43-4, 46, 49, 55, 59-61, 63-4, appendix 1 faculty attitude to TV, 25-9, chapters 4 and 5, see also persuading faculty to use TV faculty control of TV, 104, see also legal questions, faculty relations with TV staff

faculty indifference to student opinion, 55-6,78-9 faculty relations with TV staff, 23, 41, 63, 69-70

Index/ 123 failure rate of students, 56-7, 82-3 feedback from 'IV to faculty, 53-4, 64, 68-9 feedback from students to faculty, 51-3, 55-6, 79,87-8 formalizin,g effect, 50 freelance 'IV staff, 40, 42, 42n Gattegno, Caleb, 50, 105 General Arts program, 4, 10, 44, 79, see also New Program 'give 'IV a try,' 16, 29-30, 70 grades of students and opinion re 'IV, 83-5,91-4 handouts of lecture notes, 55 Hawthorne effect, 16, 83 Honours program, 4 innovation in teaching methods, xvi, 15-17,21,27,29,54,59,61,68-9,99, see also territoriality, typology Instructional Media Centre, 38, 40, 98 lab demonstrations, 5, 9, 57, 66, 98 large screen 'IV projectors, 35, 95-6 leasing of TV studios, 39, 46 legal questions, 27, 29, 61, 63, 69, appendix 1 live closed circuit 'IV, 27 live teaching, 27-8, 42, 49, see also effect Of'IVon McLuhan, Marshall, xviii, 87, 102 master-apprenticeship system, see academic guild master control, 35 media force, 17, 28, 50, chapter 7 monitors, 36 movies, 36, 87 New Program, 10-11, 31-2, 44 'no significant difference' studies, 14-17, 56-7,82-3,103 Off-Campus Colleges report, xvi, xvii OECA (Ontario Educational Communications Authority, formerly E'IVO), 33, 34, 37, 39, 101 personal contact versus 'IV, 18, 20, 67, 80-1, 95

persuading faculty to use 'IV, 12, 17, 21, 24-6,30 pilot series, see cno playback facilities, 35 potential for future use of 'IV, 67-70, chapter7 prerequisite courses, 90, 91 Presidents of Ontario Universities, see Committee of Presidential Advisory Committee: on future of Scarborough College, 12, 99; on media, 31-2 priorities in 'IV lectures, 57-8, 61, 65 producer-director ('resident'), 23-4, 37-8, 40, 53, see also commercial producing professor, 6-8, 22-4, 40-1, see also faculty attitude to 'IV, faculty relations with 'IV staff production pattern, 39-42, 59-60 production record, 42-4, 46, appendix 2 production staff, 37-9 projection rooms, 36 publishing and 'IV, 22, 49, 63, 68, 69 replacement of live teaching by 'IV: xviii, 5, 17,20,46,chapter4,65, 71-7,81, 9.8; seen as job threat, 26, 27, 63; see also economics of 'IV, typology revolt against 'IV, 25 script method of 'IV lecture production, 23,49-50 'seed money' fund, 33, 102-3 self-0bservation on 'IV, see feedback from 'IV sets (studio), 36 standards compatibility, 37 student attitudes, 15, 16, 18, 28, 55-6, chapter 6; see also faculty indifference to student experience of 'IV, 91-4 student grades and 'IV, 83-5, 91-4 student performance in 'IV courses, see 'no significant difference' student sophistication as 'IV viewers, 18, 84,94 studio audience, 53 studio facilities, 34-7, 98 supervisor of 'IV studios, 39, see also director supplementary use of 'IV, 48, chapter 5, 81, 86-7, 98

124/ Index talk programs, 44-6 teaching experience of faculty, 48 teaching staff: appointment re TV ability, 11-12, 21; expected teacher shortage, 5, 26; see also faculty, persuading faculty teaching methods compared, 14, 19-20, 25-6, 52-9, 66-7, see also effect of TV, live teaching, no significant difference, typology team courses, 54, 84, 93 technical producer, 39-40 Television Committee, 30-2, appendix 1 television: impersonality of, see personal contact versus TV; integral part of college design, 6, 16, 97-100; production staff, 37-9; tape library, 20; threat

to live teaching, 25, 27, 63, appendix 1 graduates,' 81-9 'TV undergraduates,' 90-6 territoriality, 27, 54, 61, 78, appendix 1 textbooks and TV, 19-20, 27 time costs of TV use, see factor of three timetabling of TV use, 51, 54, 79, 95 training faculty to use TV, 21-4, 59, 68, 87,104 typology of faculty TV use, 71-7 'TV

University Television, xv, xvi, xviii, 14, 15,17,19,20,58,80

visual content, 50, 57, 63, 105 Williams, Dr D.C., xvii, 12