METHODS OF INSTRUCTION FOR TEACHING KEYBOARDING

Excerpts from Typewriting: Learning and Instruction
Robinson, Erickson, Crawford, Beaumont, and Ownby
Southwestern Publishing Co, 1979

From the findings of skill-learning research and studies of time and motion in human performance, technique or form has come to be considered a prerequisite to skilled performance of motor tasks. Without correct technique, the skill cannot be performed with speed, precision, and minimum effort. Technique underlies and becomes the essential basis for the development of keyboarding speed and accuracy.

Attitude Toward Learning A New Task

Some students will approach the study of keyboarding with interest and desire to learn the task. They appear to regard it as a relevant and desirable thing to learn. Others approach it as a duty or requirement. They expect to learn it, but with relatively little enthusiasm. Others approach the task with evident discomfort. They have some fear or trepidation and expect only negative things to ensue from this task and the judgments they expect from teachers, parents, and peers. It is the responsibility of the teacher to present the new learning task in a positive manner and show its relevance in their lives.The teacher must also watch carefully for evidence of excessive anxiety and manipulate the goals and challenges of learning activities for individuals so that appropriate tension results. Excessive tension can be created by the demand for "a perfect copy of each exercise" or by the setting of speed goals that are unrealistically high in relation to the students’ current levels of performance. Appropriate tension can be established by setting realistic individual goals and pacing students in their attempts to reach them.Anxiety or tension is also affected by competition within a group of students. Competition is a powerful influence in learning: Improperly used, however, it can also be very destructive, particularly for those who are "destined to lose." Some ways to minimize the negative aspects of competition and to reduce excessive anxiety are:

• Encourage students to compete against themselves.
• Have each pupil set his/her own goals and keep a private progress chart.
• Try to give each pupil some experience with success by arranging situations in which all students have a fairly equal chance in a variety of situations.
• Make use of group competitive situations that stress fun rather than winning.
• Keep a separate folder for each student rather than a grade book that indicates only relative performance.

Keyboarding is learned by appropriate and purposeful practice. Of paramount importance in guiding the practice is the teacher. Not only must teachers know the whole constellation of sub skills that make up the total skill, but they must also be able to demonstrate the whole skill in its entire smooth performance as well as its individual and involved parts.Further, the teacher must be able to observe the students’ weaknesses and strengths as they practice, and he or she must be able to capitalize on the strengths to aid students in overcoming the weaknesses. The teacher has the responsibility, also, to know the best methods of teaching the various keyboarding skills and how the student can best practice to insure maximum skill growth in the time allocated to the learning.

The behavior of the teacher in the formal learning environment is conditioned by his or her knowledge of learning theory and principles. The ability to apply this knowledge in the firing-line experience of the keyboarding classroom determines in large measure the students’ success.Providing Appropriate Kinds and Amounts of Guidance Classroom evidence indicates that individual students need different kinds and amounts of guidance as they learn to key. The progression of learning is from complete teacher guidance, to teacher/student guidance, to student self-guidance. Teachers must know what is important and what is unimportant in keyboarding, and the unimportant should be eliminated from the learning events. The teaching goal in any teaching situation should be to help each learner when he or she needs help but eventually to help each one become a true self-learner who can work without teacher guidance.

Reinforcement

Regular reinforcement (reinforcing a high percentage of appropriate responses) seems to make for fast learning. Intermittent reinforcement (skipping reinforcement sometimes as students gain skill) seems to make for long remembering. Reinforcement serves two primary functions: (1) it helps to sustain motivation and (2) it provides information feedback about the adequacy of the performance.Reinforcement is believed to be most effective in skill learning if it is (a) positive rather than negative, (b) constructive rather than destructive, and (c) immediate rather than delayed.For learner behavior to be properly directed, individual keyboarding students need to know how they are doing. What they are doing correctly should continue. What they are doing that needs to be changed, improved, or eliminated should be brought to their attention.

The answer to the question, "How am I doing?" is known variously as reinforcement, information feedback, and knowledge of results, and it has a powerful influence on motivation and positive learner behavior.In the keyboarding classroom, knowledge of results is much more than knowing the keying rate or the number of errors made. Far more important is the feedback the teacher provides than analysis of the student as he or she keys. This analysis should be followed by positive suggestions for changing the way in which the student practices or by teacher demonstration of the correct way with student imitation of the demonstration.There is a distinct difference between observing and grading. In learning any psychomotor skill, an essential component of the learning process is an active teacher who observes and evaluates the process of learning and provides feedback in the form of correctives (comments and demonstrations) to help the learner improve. Herein lies a major difference between teaching and grading. In the early stages of learning any new task, evaluation should be of the process not of  the product. Only after the process has been mastered should the evaluation of the product (what the student keys) occur.

Group Instructional Procedures

The demonstration method involves showing students the response pattern to be made and having them imitate what they see and hear. It is perhaps the most important single method of providing instruction in keyboarding because good form is so essential in maximizing skill development. In teaching good keyboarding form "an ounce of showing is worth a pound of discussing". It might also be said that "a gram of demonstration is worth a kilogram of discovery" as far as learning the procedural elements of keyboarding is concerned, for "discovery" or trial-and-error methods are uneconomical and inefficient in complex skill learning.The demonstration method is a "must" in teaching beginning keyboarding students, and it should also be used liberally throughout the entire keyboarding program. It may be used effectively to teach almost any new technique or procedure as well as to give remedial instruction. Students of all ability levels learn rapidly as a result of its frequent use, especially those whose reading levels are low. Demonstrations are preferably given by a "live" teacher rather than video tape. Live demonstrations should be:

1. Easily perceived, organized, and remembered by viewers;
2. Capable of approximate imitation by the students;
3. Accompanied with simple, but pertinent, verbal instructions that are specific to the task; followed up by student imitation and teacher observation and confirming or corrective comments.

The follow-up activity to a good demonstration includes not only student imitation, but also observation and analysis of the quality of that imitation. This analysis can be made more accurately by a competent observer than by the performer. The result of this analysis determines the kind and amount of additional demonstration and practice that seem necessary. Expecting students to make decisions of these kinds, particularly in the early stages of learning each new task, is usually quite unrealistic.The success or failure of instruction, whatever its format or substance, is determined by the degree to which teachers perform these activities well. No "canned" program of hardware-software can perform them; only the "teacher in residence" can do so. Excellence of learning materials is essential in maximizing learning and skill development. Equally important, however, is how those materials are used by the teacher as well as by the student. So long as teachers properly fulfill their role of matching the right methods, materials, and media to the right students at the right time, "packaged" systems of instruction cannot replace them.

Keyboarding Learning/Mastery

Keyboarding is a psychomotor skill, for its learning and performance involve mental processes as well as finely coordinated muscular movements. It is also a perceptual-motor skill in that stimuli to sensory receptors (eyes, ears, fingertips, muscles, tendons, and joints) are screened, transformed, and organized by a neural process known as "selective perception" into modifiedmental "images" of the original stimuli. It is these modified "images" that are further processed mentally which trigger muscular responses.These descriptions suggest that keyboarding is a complex skill made up of finely discriminated movement patterns that depend upon interrelated sensory, perceptual, mental, and motor inputs and outputs which must occur "close together in time". Basically, keyboarding is "internally" monitored and controlled although it is "externally" performed.

There are three phases of learning keyboarding skills. Phase 1 involves learning the nature of the keying task. This process includes learning the spatial arrangement of the keyboard, how to strike the right keys in the right way in response to letters seen in the copy or heard from dictation, and how to operate efficiently the machine parts used for spacing, shifting for capital letters, and using the return/enter key.Phase 2 is characterized by improved "reading-for-keying" skills, by increasingly refined responses, and by the shortening of between-keystroke time intervals. It includes the development of "chaining," when individual letter stimuli are perceived and responded to as combinations and the improvement of continuity.Phase 3 is marked by an increase in the degree of response stability, increased accuracy of stimulus and increased spontaneity of responses both to individual letters and to letter combinations.

Technique Emphasis

In developing keyboarding skill, stress technique first, speed second, and accuracy last. Skillful technique is the best guarantee of combined speed and accuracy. In order to be trained efficiently, students must be guided progressively through a series of movements of eye, arm, hand, and finger sequences which culminate in the movements or motion patterns they are expected to use in keying.The position of the keyer’s body serves the simple function of consistently keeping the arms, hands, and fingers in correct relationship to the keyboard. Consistent position permits all motions to be made from a relatively fixed rather than a constantly variable starting point. Correct position is natural, easy, and relaxed.

Observing, Confirming, and Correcting

Knowing what to look for is imperative so that appropriate feedback and additional demonstrations can be provided. The critical things to check during observations are:

1. The body should be reasonably erect, not leaning over the keyboard.
2. The fingers should be well curved and upright, the fingertips lightly touching the home keys.
3. The wrists should be low and relaxed; there should be little or no evidence of tension in the backs of the hands.
4. Each finger should move independently to its target key with a continuous motion to the key and back to home key position.
5. The thumb should remain in a relaxed position just touching the space bar until needed for spacing.
6. The shift keys should be operated using "shift-key-release" movements.
7. The return/enter key should be tapped with the right pinkie.
8. The hands should remain relatively stationary.
9. The eyes of students should be on the printed copy.

Introducing New Keys

Students should be guided by the teacher in 1) locating by sight the new key on a keyboard chart, 2) finding by sight the key on their keyboard, 3) reaching the controlling finger to the key and back to home position by sight (after appropriate teacher demonstration), 4) striking and releasing the key by sight, 5) striking by sight the key in combination with other keys previously learned, and 6) have students key from dictation or printed copy without looking at their fingers.

Concluding Statement

The continuous development of each keyboarding student to the maximum of his or her potential should be the goal of our instruction.