This document discusses instructional drill-and-practice software for classroom use. It outlines key aspects of selecting effective drill-and-practice software, including allowing sufficient time for students to think and answer questions, accurately judging answers, and providing understandable feedback. Benefits are described as well, such as immediate feedback, increased student motivation over traditional paper methods, and freeing up teacher time. Potential limitations are also noted, such as software being misused for lessons rather than practice, and criticism that drill-and-practice contradicts constructivist teaching aims.

1. Instructional
Software for
Classroom Use
REPORTER: VANESSA JOY T. BULANADI

2. Drill-and-Practice Software
Selecting
 Control Over the Drill-and-Practice
Answering the given questions or problems are
given time limit, however, a good drill-and-practice
software still gives user enough time to think and
answer before proceeding to the next question.
Users may be given signal to the software if he/she
is ready to go to the next question by
pressing/tapping a key o clicking on a mouse
button.

6.  Answer Judging
A good drill-and-practice program must be able
to discriminate correct answers from incorrect ones,
especially if the user is required to enter a short
answer rather than simply choosing from a
selection.

7.  Gives Appropriate Feedback
Two errors must be avoided when programs give
feedback. First, program display sample, readable
and understandable feedbacks, not to overly design
the feedback. Second, programs carelessly give
more interesting feedback when the user answers
incorrectly. This, therefore, encourages users to give
false answer to see the interesting response from
the program.

8. Benefits
 Immediate Feedback
Paper and pencil drill-and-practice gives delayed
feedback, thus, students would not know
immediately how much they performed in their drill
and practice.

9.  Motivation
Students are not simply motivated doing paper
and pencil drill-and-practice for reason that they do
not like writing or they have poor writing skills. In
drill-and-practice software, students get motivated
not only because they will not write, but also
because the idea of being in front of the computer
that they love to operate and manipulate.

10.  Saving Teacher Time
Teachers can attend to other students needs
while their students spend time doing the drill-and-
practice. Some areas that benefitted the drill-and-
practice are: Math, typing skills, English and foreign
language vocabulary, countries and its capitals.

11. Limitations and Problems
 Perceived Misuse
Some teachers make use of the drill-and-practice
as part of lesson introduction and not really for
practicing the students skills.

12.  Criticism by Constructiveness
People consider this drill-and-practice as an
outmoded approach to teaching for this contradicts
the aim of reconstructed curriculum.