The 21st century has seen rapid enrollment in online courses and environmental and biological determinates, such as COVID-19, that challenge how universities respond to education. However, this “new way of doing things” has empirical support from the past. Skinner (1968) laid out a science of teaching derived from operant conditioning principles and provided methods for adopting programmed instruction into what he termed a “teaching machine.” This series of investigations evaluated the validity of programmed instruction in online courses, as measured by quiz performance, the frequency of discussion posts, instructor time commitment, generalization, and student perceptions of the online modalities used. Results are discussed for the synthesis of programmed instruction and group learning towards a modern teaching machine.

21 世纪，在线课程和环境和生物决定因素（例如 COVID-19）的入学人数迅速增加，这对大学如何应对教育提出了挑战。然而，这种“新的做事方式”有过去的经验支持。Skinner (1968) 提出了一门源自操作性条件反射原则的教学科学，并提供了将程序化教学纳入他所谓的“教学机器”的方法。这一系列调查评估了在线课程中程序化教学的有效性，通过测验表现、讨论帖子的频率、教师时间承诺、概括和学生对所使用的在线模式的看法来衡量。讨论了针对现代教学机器综合编程教学和小组学习的结果。