Thoughts on Davis

The Keller Plan sparked my interest because it offers a means to implementing differentiated instruction. Educators have always struggled with how to allow students to move at their own pace, typically giving up and teaching to the middle third of the class. The Keller Plan allows students to receive a study guide and learn individually. Also of important, it allows for asynchronous learning, offering the flexibility for distance education.

21st century technology now makes the Keller Plan (or atleast many elements) feasible in classroom environments across multiple ages and disciplines. I have a Blackboard site set up for my Geometry and Algebra 1 classes which hosts a variety of notesheets, interactive educational tools, links and textbook resources. Although very few of students ever log on (ahh the bane of teaching academic non-honors courses), it is available should they ever develop a wild spark of interest.

Davis (p2) points out the disadvantages of the Keller Plan, particularly in its most traditional sense. It is tough to provide the personal attention needed for the Keller Plan to operate when teaching in the traditional classroom setting. Also, distance courses require much more self-discipline on the part of the student (ironic, given this post is a week late).

In the high school setting, one possible workaround for these drawbacks is an ICR (inclusion) classroom, where a special education teacher is assisting a traditional classroom teacher in a core class, often with a high number of special needs students present. I am teaching an ICR Algebra 1 part 2 and an ICR geometry and am planning on implementing many of the Keller characteristics in the class. I've been looking for a way to allow my brighter students to work at their own pace and this shows quite a bit of promise.

References: DAVIS, R. L., & RAGSDALE, K. M. (N.D.). DESIGN OF AN EFFECTIVE, WEB-BASED, GLOBAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT USING THE KELLER PLAN.