many individuals have been involved in our field from the
beginning and have witnessed firsthand its growth and impact of
what we do on training and education In this program
. We will be talking with Dr Malcolm Fleming who
is a faculty member in the instructional systems technology program
at Indiana University for over 20 years. DR Fleming
welcome. I'd like to begin by talking about your
interest in the field and how you got started and
I know that you were in World War Two in
the Army Signal Corps as a still photography, had
a long history of working the stove target. You've
got interested at age eight and kept it up even
to the day, I understand. Uh, and
eventually you went to work for Kodak after the war
and they recommended you come to Indiana University to study
uh, audio communication. So what really created your
interest? What motivated you to pursue a career in
this field? Well as you gather by what you've
already said, there was already, I could say
a lifelong interest in photography, the big puzzle was
what to do with it. What kind of photography
to do that bothered me for a long time.
I wasn't interested in portraiture. Wasn't interested in commercial
photography particularly. Um, it was a Kodak that
I got the idea of education. Maybe there was
an education link up photography that would be useful and
interesting. So, that's what brought me here.
There's a big feeling that photography or at least pictures
could be somehow profitably linked to education. So,
I came here to find out what that was all
about. Okay, so when you started, the
field was called audiovisual Communication instruction, how would you
correct characterize the focus during those early years? What
the field focused on? Yeah, well, a
part that I had contact while it was like,
either if they are interested in huge civilization or are
you're interested in medium? I think of harvey fry
and flatten the number of those people who tight graphics
courses and Were directly involved in moving images of one
sort or another into the classroom. So uh they
were my early teacher. Yeah, about this.
I got particularly involved in the decision making process.
How how do you pick what pictures for what purpose
, with what audience, that old game. And
so that's where I mostly uh concentrated. I came
with a technical photographic background so that I didn't need
. It was just you know, how to link
up with the learner. Um, so that was
the challenge of it all. And then eventually turned
me into research, Find some of the answers.
And learning learning literature where I've found if you do
so and so worth a stimulus that you get attention
or something. So I began to think, well
, there are relationships between graphic, photographic verbal manipulations
and no how people attend, whether they attend or
not, whether they learn or not. And so
that motivated an intensive a literature search and for principles
, as I call them, that could be used
by media folks that were based on learning research and
howard levy came in then on the a motivational part
of it, which I had not looked into at
all. We were the collaborators. Over the years
, our field has changed. The courses we offer
, our graduate students have changed. In fact,
the courses were teaching the day are quite different in
many ways. And the courses I took as a
student, how would you characterize your preparation? Maybe
some of the courses you took? The emphasis at
first, the courses were very, basically technical.
Mhm. And we got that the navy on one
corner of the campus and we went over to education
and got some med psych, but it was pretty
hard to link them. And that was the problem
I felt in my early training, I came cold
to the education field. I never taught, I
never really thought I ever would teach. Okay.
Uh, so, and I had a lot of
education deficiencies in order to get into the school that
had makeup, so philosophy and psych and all the
rest of it. So whereas I imagine most of
our students came with an education background. Well,
Dave would have encountered uh curriculum in a different way
than I did. Um, as to. They
indicated that the main weakness, I felt any linkage
between regular education, basic courses and AMY courses.
Yeah, there are undoubtedly important linkages, but mostly
it didn't occur except, let's say in utilization.
Um, I was dead wood point instruct students about
, I want to prepare class for film and so
on, how to follow up. There was that
much connection done. Um, but I felt in
the production and there wasn't very much okay. Um
, Thinking back to the 1960s, very exciting time
. Our field is still very young. It's only
been um, maybe You know, 10, 15
, 10 years or so of ACC are published when
you started. So I'm sure you have some great
expectations. Maybe some aspirations when you got started as
a new fact member. Can you? We lived
a little bit that and tell us, you know
, what what did you hope to accomplish when you
got started? What was your, your research focus
his first few years? Well, we had all
the enthusiasm about a bright new idea, young folks
eager to do make it in the world and convinced
the, the A field was, was of pivotal
importance and growing. And so there was a lot
of the national enthusiasm, as I recall, some
of the original difficulties were, yeah, are you
going to find a position in a public school or
a college? Most presume college? Because that's where
we were, but gradually involved that business and industry
might be an even bigger police to practice all the
good things we are learning. And then along came
systems development. And I asked, you know,
oh, new way of thinking did that. I
was curious about that because I know that you were
there when the department was called Audiovisual Communications. And
I think it was about 1971 when I first started
that, uh, he was only Larson's last year
. The department decided to change the name to instructional
systems technology. How did that impact? Was that
something you thought was a good change or did it
something away from maybe what you were doing? I
saw it and more political than anything. Okay.
A. V. Was wasn't right new concept The
older one and not not accepted everywhere on this campus
in particular and it was sort of beneath uh many
instructional scholars to think about media. But the easiest
label I thought particularly the keyword systems for very uh
, pertinent at that time an important concept. And
I think Larson put together in a strange combination instructional
systems technology. They wanted all the keywords in there
, but they were put together in the new linkage
I felt anyway. I thought it was uh,
opened up new ways of thinking and new curricula,
new employment opportunities and further was just strategically a good
move. Um, you've had 20 years is the
fact that you've also observed the field some beforehand.
I mean you look at media beforehand and and you've
seen changes since then. What are some of the
major changes you saw during your career that that were
exciting? Well there are technical changes. It seemed
like that was mm. Yeah. The only a
change that was characteristic of the field was just constant
change. Technically there was always something new medium being
developed and and there was a competition between us and
television near the corner of the cabin. Um And
I thought, mm conceptually the biggest change. Most
important change was programmed instruction because there was a definite
linkage between what you did and what the result was
and the effect was to change instruction. Then you
designed the unit, you tested the unit. Yeah
. The students earned a B. And C.
F. That's fine. But if they missed one
or two others then you went back and re programmed
until until those two deficiencies were instructional, he corrected
. I thought that was a very important concept.
Um You're probably best known for your work with visuals
and it's it's timely. We still use your book
today. My students are buying it on amazon.
They pay actually more for the shipping than they do
for the book. I don't know the royalty.
Uh We actually used it. We I told a
message design course last summer. It was very well
received. I think we may have bought up all
the extra copies in the U. S. And
around there. But what are what were some of
the major ideas you mentioned programmed instruction? But what
are their major ideas influenced your career and your thinking
? You mean ideas from the literature, from the
literature, other fields maybe they didn't. That impacted
your thinking? Well, you know, from my
riding, uh I really got attracted first by the
concept of attention what gets learner's attention. And many
of my first principles were directed to that. Um
, then learning seemed to be more part of the
last name, um more obvious in our thinking.
Mm well no, we had to learn and we
knew that repeating it or Or associated with no one
uh, things in your memory that would facilitate the
linkage. So, and so a lot of learning
part I felt from our classes and from our own
experience, we kind of had a pretty good handle
on some of the learning procedures or principles. So
I felt the attention part was, it may be
neglected also, uh, I neglected the attitude part
. I was pretty weak in that area and that's
where our leave came into film in that important component
. I remember you uh this grant that you had
to do the research on finding these principles and first
published an article in viewpoints, the school of Education
Bulletin. Actually remember one Christmas uh I got extra
money to duplicate that book on the old Gestetner machine
and cut them up and bind him and and all
for your class uh one time. But I'm wondering
that article evolved into the first chapter of your instruction
message design book with Karen Levy. What if you
could tell us a bit about how that your can
the conceptual that book grew and and how it developed
over the years. They kind of hit it and
just started as a series of principles that we're and
Memmio or what did all form and uh than kind
of evolved against chapter by chapter uh Howard was just
a fellow faculty person and we just got talking about
field and people learning and so on. And he
kept prodding me about the attitude part and I didn't
know the literature and further i it was sort of
an effective part and I was concentrating on burning part
and back then I didn't realize the importance of the
relationship but Howard filled in there with that important part
of it. He knew the literature and he knew
the importance of attitude. Mm hmm. And I'm
my teaching. Um I was in production classes or
scripting. I was most concerned that mm people the
students attended to the learning and attention basics. Uh
huh. Because so frequently the students wanted to make
the movie of the year, you know, Hollywood
quality and audience and I saw that as more attention
to the effective part entertainment part than the education part
. So I kind of resisted that home field and
that's where thankfully Howard came in was needed. He
could do it. And so we sort of finally
collaborative. That's kind of missing since about two years
ago I got interested in. Well I'm large.
Some of my photos had taken a house in the
pictures and my life just casually and got them digitalized
in the computer and enlarged if you and I realized
that people like them. Okay, I'll make some
enlargements and make a display and metal wood and Build
the walls there gallery area one time with pictures.
Yeah. So finally I developed her in january this
year set up. Mhm Single entre push in on
, what's the word? Entrepreneur ridership partnership to work
? I said no proprietorship for Mac, Fleming photos
and several pictures. Um We're the crazy thing to
do in your 90s and when you don't know a
darn thing about business in the first place. So
, mm, I've been learning anyway. That's just
in the side of what, where this photography urge
will lead you. Okay, well on that note
, bob learner who was one of the enduring book
photographers. I had a chance to meet him about
a year ago and he made the comment that a
photographer is known for one photograph. He jokes that
could have retired at the age of 22 because that's
his photograph is known for. What accomplishment in your
career do you think you're your best known for?
Why God, my biology classroom films that I was
involved in? I'm sure, um, those were
some of the first month of microscopic photography. Yeah
. And well, First serial, 1st film was
characteristics of plants and animals. And these are all
selected on the basis of their relevance to the curriculum
. And just to keep us on the straight and
narrow. Uh, Larson always had an educational author
as part of the committee. So we media folks
couldn't get carried away with the subject either, uh
, by way of errors or, or I'll mention
them anyway. So they kept us on the subject
matter narrow track. Mm But I don't look on
those a signal accomplishments, particularly, uh, some
of them sold and some didn't and that was abs
problem margins problem. Mm So I guess it's in
the area. Wind discussing. I think it's the
president's relevance of research literature to our practice and trying
to find out what the relevance was and trying to
communicate. And I suppose it was my, from
my point of view, my single contribution. Okay
, right. Um, I know that today you're
heavily involved in photography and we talked about beforehand and
you have a, I think a unique perspective and
that let's go back and look at photography rather than
all the multimedia and computer stuff. Could you tell
us a bit about that? I guess, a
philosophy that you have today about photography? Oh,
no, it seems to be that I'm more of
a thing, photography photographer than the people photographer.
My life gets at me all the time for taking
landscapes or birds or flowers or whatever, rather than
interesting pictures of people. In fact, most of
the people pictures I have of her. So that's
uh, that's a sort of in the side.
Anyway, I do like the I started, my
original concept was to be an outdoor photographer of some
sort and uh, have been successful in nature photographers
and who can compete with National Geographic. But anyway
, those are some of the dimension, the types
of photography that aspired to. Um, I guess
the alone artistic principles occasionally say, you know the
most in picture point of view too. I need
a calls up here. That training comes into my
still photography and a little art background comes into the
notion of balance or emphasis or whatever. Yeah.
Um, well, it's a sort of a um
, mixed up part of ideas run through my mind
when I take pictures, curious thing is that I
don't take many anymore. I'm reveling in history.
It's in my computer. I'm loving to dig them
out. Large manipulate. Did you ever think when
you enjoyed those old 45 speed graphic natives that you'd
be doing it so easily on a computer someday?
Never did. Never did. We're dead. Well
, we thank you very much for your time.
And uh, it's been very interesting having a chance
to chat with you again after I think probably almost
30 years since I saw you since last last summer
. I saw you for a few minutes. So
thank you very much for your time for me.