Mathematics has long had a prominent place in American education at all levels. In part for this reason, during the 1950s and 1960s there were at least nine important programs to improve math teaching in the United States. One of oldest was the University of Illinois Committee on School Mathematics, established in 1951.
The UICSM developed an introductory course in high school mathematics. Materials included these programmed textbooks, which covered some of the same material as a more conventional textbook. Information and questions appear on one page, and the next page reveals the answer. Turning the book upside down gives a new set of questions and answers.
Topics were often explained with cartoon-like drawings. A total of four books were needed for the semester-long course. As in other curriculum projects, these programmed textbooks were reproduced cheaply for classroom trials. In this case, they did not go beyond the experimental stage.
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