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What Future For the University ?

This is how a freshman learns introductory biology at Golden West College in Huntington Beach, California, each semester.

At his own convenience, the student, one of 600 taking the course, goes to a large, second-floor room called the Audio-Tutorial Biology Laboratory. He punches in on a time clock, then checks out an audio-cassette player and a slide tray from an equipment desk. Entering one of 60 study carrels equipped with slide viewer, micro-11 scope, and biological specimens, he sits down and switches on the tape.

"This is Course Objective Nine," the recorded voice of the instructor Lou Mikelson greets him. "It covers the body's internal control and balance systems. Open your lab manual to page 156 and put the first slide in the viewer. Look at the part marked 'A'. It shows in diagram form the central nervous system of the body...."

For the next 60 minutes of tape Mikelson leads the student through an explanation of the voluntary and involuntary nervous systems, the axon, the dendrite, the synapse, and the major parts and functions of the brain, He covers each point in detail and orchestrates all the equipment at the student's elbow, telling him when to change the slide, when to look into the microscope, when to go to one of the lab tables at the back of the room to conduct an experiment, and even when to ask for help from one of the para professional "instructional associates" on duty at the lab.

On one tape, with a cheery "see you in ten minutes or so", he even suggests that the student get up and take a walk before reviewing the entire slide series and going on with the lesson. The student can stop the tape, repeat it, go as fast or as slow as he pleases, and quit after 15 minutes, three hours, or whenever he's had enough. Typically, he stays in the carrel for about two hours before turning in his equipment and punching out on the clock.

On the other side of the campus, some of Golden West's 1,000 students stand in line to use the Computer Services Centre. Inside, they sit before one of 30 terminals linked to an IBM Model 155 computer and "interact" with any of 590 teacher-prepared "segments" — drills, lessons and reviews — stored in the computer's memory bank. The computer prints out questions, and the student types back answers in subjects from spelling to algebra. A "microfiche" hookup, which allows stored miniaturised visual materials to be projected on the computer screen, even enables art history students to view Old Masters while the computer asks questions about them.

Elsewhere at Golden West the "Golden keys" typing lab hums with the sound of video and audio cassettes. Would-be typists operate almost completely on their own, using the tapes for speed drills, which are dictated at a gradually increasing rate. Engineering classes employ sound-equipped slides to teach prospective technicians how to use a slide rule. In freshman English, students practice syntax and paragraph structure with a tape playback — and get back their compositions accompanied by a tape cassette of the instructor's criticisms.

Golden West's "Electronic U" even extends beyond the perimeter of the 122 acre campus.