PRECISION TEACHING: DISCOVERIES AND EFFECTS

The only adult in the classroom seems to be loitering. She is not standing in the front lecturing, or sitting at the teacher's desk reading to the class, or grading papers. She is moving about the classroom from student to student, answering a question with a whisper here, offering a quiet suggestion there, helping with a chart decision here, and giving a pat and a smile of appreciation there. Now and then, she calls for a class one-minute practice session. The students are busy at their desks, in teams of two, timing each other's practice, jumping up to take a chart down from the wall, or to post new data. The students are noisy, shouting correct answers as fast as they can at 200 words per minute, several shouting at once at neighboring desks. It sounds more like an adult cocktail party, or a school recess, than a school classroom. It is not the orderly class that student teachers were taught to manage, with one student out of 30 responding at a time and only when called upon. The "precision teacher" performs like a coach, an advisor, and an on-line instructional designer. She arranges materials and methods for the students to teach themselves, including self-counting, timing, charting, and one-on-one direction and support. Many teachers are threatened by this change in their jobs. They entered teaching because they loved to lecture or entertain children. They looked forward to doing that at least 6 hours a day. In this precision teaching (PT) classroom there is almost no lecturing. The entertainment is the thrill from students' visible performance gains. All the