Continental Classroom

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Continental Classroom
Also known asEducation Exchange
GenreEducational television
Created byEdward Stanley
Country of originUnited States
Production
Running time30 minutes
Original release
NetworkNBC
ReleaseOctober 6, 1958 (1958-10-06) –
December 18, 1964 (1964-12-18)

Continental Classroom is a U.S.

MOOC
(massive open online course) in statistics.

Background, production and format

The idea for the course came from the drive to upgrade science education in the US after the Soviet Union's successful launch of

President Eisenhower.[4] Physics for the nuclear age was the topic of the first year's course, which was broadcast from 6:30 to 7:00 in the morning Monday through Friday. The second course, in chemistry, was preceded by a rebroadcast of the physics course at 6:00 am.[3] Courses in mathematics and American government followed. The Ford Foundation withdrew its funding for the fourth season, and the network subsequently canceled the program. The fifth season was a rebroadcast of the fourth, the last program airing on May 17, 1963.[5]

Lecturers were paid $40,000 for a year of at least 130 half-hour lectures, and could have one or more paid assistants. They were given use of an apartment in Manhattan and their children were placed by NBC in good schools. They worked from outlines, rather than memorizing scripts. Each lecture was recorded in a four-hour studio session some two weeks ahead of the air date,[6] usually in the afternoon by instructor preference. The first two seasons used three cameras; after the loss of the Ford Foundation support, this was reduced to two. The total budget was between $1.2 and $1.5 million a year.[7]

The program attracted more viewers and a wider variety of viewers than NBC had expected:

public television stations.[15] Each course had an accompanying textbook, and about an hour of homework was assigned for each lecture;[2] local colleges and universities were free to impose their own requirements such as discussion sessions, and to determine fees, for students to receive credit for the course. More than 400 institutions offered courses built around the program, for credit ranging from zero to seven hours; the maximum number of students watching the program for credit in any season was under 5,000.[12] (The physics course was announced only about a month in advance of its start, causing logistical problems for colleges.[6]) In some markets, such as New York, the program was ultimately re-run in the afternoon, and tapes were produced that some colleges used.[16]

Season 1: Physics

The first course began on October 6, 1958, and consisted of 165 lectures under the title Atomic Age Physics by

Carl D. Anderson.[18]

Season 2: Chemistry

For the second season, on chemistry, the lecturer was

Glenn Seaborg, then Chancellor at Berkeley, appeared on the first broadcast of the season.[20] The physics course was repeated during the preceding half hour,[3] and chemists and physicists began watching each other's programs in addition.[21]

Season 3: Mathematics

The Contemporary Mathematics course that began in fall 1960 was divided in two ways: each week, the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes were for college students and the Tuesday and Thursday classes for teachers;

Gottfried Noether, then at Boston University, helped develop the course and administer it at the institutional level.[16]

Seasons 4 and 5: Government

The course in government was titled American Government: Structure and Function and taught by Peter H. Odegard, chairman of the political science department at Berkeley.[5][26] It was the first college-credit course in social studies to be available on national television;[27] the audience included over half the high-school social science teachers in the US.[28]

For the fifth season, in 1962–63, there were plans for a course in economics,[29] but NBC decided the cost of the program was too high, and instead the government course was repeated.[5]

Education Exchange

In the 1963–64 season Continental Classroom became Education Exchange, which aired for the last time on December 18, 1964.[15] This took the form of short courses on specific topics developed by outside agencies, such as a 20-day series on safety,[30] and series titled Wall Street for Everyone[31] and Sex in American Culture.[32]

Reception

In its first season the program won the 1958

Sylvania Television Award for Outstanding Public Service Series.[34]

Stanley of NBC said that Alexander Stoddard, the former superintendent of schools in Los Angeles, had told him Continental Classroom was "the most significant thing that happened in American education in the last 100 years" and that the

MOOC in statistics.[25]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 9780023530609, pp. 294–95, pdf online
    .
  2. ^ a b c John Crosby, "Television and Radio", Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Sarasota, Florida), January 16, 1959, p. 13.
  3. ^ a b c d "TV Course Offers Chemistry, Physics", The Victoria Advocate (Victoria, Texas), October 4, 1959, p. 11C.
  4. ^ a b Carlisle, p. 48.
  5. ^ a b c d Carlisle, pp. 51–52.
  6. ^ a b Stanley K. Derby, "Continental Classroom: an Experiment in Educational Television", School Science and Mathematics 59.8 (November 1959) 651–59 (subscription required).
  7. ^ Carlisle, pp. 49, 51, 52.
  8. Schenectady Gazette
    (Schenectady, New York), September 29, 1959, p. 12.
  9. Eugene Register-Guard
    (Eugene, Oregon), December 22, 1958, p. 1.
  10. Ocala Star-Banner
    (Ocala, Florida), December 22, 1958, p. 12: this tells of a class in a Montclair, New Jersey, high school who at 7:00 one morning discovered "an elderly couple" sitting at the back of the room; their TV had broken the previous night and they had not wanted to miss the broadcast.
  11. ^ Marie Torre, New York Herald Tribune, "A Treatise on TV Education", Lawrence Journal-World (Lawrence, Kansas), June 6, 1960, p. 4.
  12. ^ a b Carlisle, pp. 49–51.
  13. ^
    ISBN 9780226921990, p. 32
    .
  14. OCLC 4026085
    , p. 50.
  15. ^
    ISBN 9780823083152
    , p. 105.
  16. ^ a b c David S. Moore, Interview with Frederick Mosteller (conducted on December 18, 1992), Journal of Statistics Education 1.1 (1993).
  17. Time
    , February 9, 1959 (subscription required).
  18. ^ "Nobel Winner To Lecture On Continental Classroom", The Victoria Advocate, May 3, 1959, p. 8.
  19. ^ "TV Classroom Set As Springboard In H.S. Teacher Plan", Lawrence Journal-World, September 2, 1959, p. 4.
  20. ^ "Modern Chemistry Course On Continental Classroom", The Victoria Advocate, September 27, 1959, p. 7.
  21. ^ Carlisle, pp. 49–50.
  22. ^ Fletcher, p. 51.
  23. ^ a b Carlisle, pp. 50–51.
  24. ISBN 9780821801246, pp. 379–404, p. 398
    .
  25. ^ a b Rick Wicklin, "The first MOOC in statistics", blog, SAS Institute, October 2, 2013.
  26. St. Petersburg Times
    (St. Petersburg, Florida), July 4, 1961, p. 3D.
  27. ^ "Expansion of Educational Television", Editorial Research Reports 1 (1962).
  28. ^ Sheilah Mann, "Introduction", Political Scientists Examine Civics Standards; PS: Political Science and Politics 29.1 (March 1996) 47–49, p. 48.
  29. ^ G. L. Bach, "Economics in the High Schools: The Responsibility of the Profession", Papers and Proceedings of the Seventy-Third Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association; The American Economic Review 51.2 (May 1961) 579–86, pp. 583–84.
  30. ^ American Association for Health, Physical Education and Recreation, Annual Safety Education Review, 1967, p. 32.
  31. ^ Broadcasting 71 (1966) 56.
  32. ^ Library of Congress catalogue Films and Other Materials for Projection, 1974, p. 295.
  33. ^ "Continental Classroom: Winner 1958 | NBC-TV", Peabody Awards, retrieved March 26, 2016.
  34. ^ "Television Awards for Two University Programs", University of California University Bulletin 7.28, March 2, 1959, p. 126.
  35. The Milwaukee Journal
    , February 21, 1960, p. 26.

Further reading

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