Draft:Great Falls Precision Teaching Project

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• Comment: I don't see evidence from the sources that this project was notable by WP standards. Ref. 3 looks like a good source, but the others are about precision teaching in general (not this specific project) or are unreliable (personal communication, Ref. 2, or a conference report, Ref. 10). If more particular sources similar to 3 could be found that might be enough to establish notability. The article has other problems as well: Inconsistent formatting, personal communication as a source (which might suggest an undisclosed COI), and excessive use of uniformly-sized subsections, which is suggestive of LLM use (though I can't prove this). WeirdNAnnoyed (talk) 12:35, 26 July 2025 (UTC)

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Great Falls Precision Teaching Project

The Great Falls Precision Teaching Project was the largest demonstration of using precision teaching in an educational setting^[2]. Conducted over six years at Sacajawea Elementary School in Great Falls, Montana. It aimed to demonstrate the effectiveness of using precision teaching—a subdiscipline of behavior analysis—as a supplement to the school district’s curriculum. The project included students and teachers from general and special education classrooms and resulted in considerable academic improvements across grade levels and instructional setting.

Origins of the Project

Key Contributors and Influences

Ray Beck and Richard (Dick) Clement organized and oversaw the Great Falls Precision Teaching project. At the time of the project, Beck served as Director of Special Education for Great Falls Public Schools. He coordinated teacher training, submitted grants to fund the work, and served as key decision maker. Clement was the principal of Sacajawea Elementary School, which served as the primary training site for participating teachers^[1][3].

Ogden Lindsley, the founder of precision teaching, significantly shaped the project’s educational model. He, and several other precision teachers such as Tim Haring, Tom Lovitt, and Harold Kunzelmann, influenced the emphasis on systematic manipulation of variables and direct measurement of behavior, which contributed to the inductive approach to learning that characterized the approach^[4]. These influences shaped the design of the one-minute practice drills students used to improve their speed and accuracy within a given curricular domain.

The Sacajawea Plan

The Sacajawea Plan was a follow up project developed from an experiment conducted by the Great Falls Public Schools Special Education Department^[1]. The experiment evaluated the effectiveness of precision teaching techniques across six elementary schools—three experimental schools and three control schools. The project was funded with a grant awarded by the Montana Office of Public Instruction. In the experiment, Great Falls teachers and staff without experience in precision teaching completed a week-long training at the University of Washington’s Experimental Education Unit^[1][4].

The Sacajawea Plan focused on integrating precision teaching methods, previously only used in special education classrooms, into general education classrooms. Sacajawea Elementary School, one of the three experimental schools that also served as the training site for the project, lent its name to the plan. Teachers at Sacajawea reported that the instructional challenges they faced with students receiving special education services were the same as those in general education, such as deficits in reading, spelling, and math. They identified issues including gaps in prerequisite skills (such as handwriting), slow performance despite higher levels of accuracy, and an inability to maintain skills over time^[1].

Precision Teaching and the Great Falls Precision Teaching Project

Precision teaching is a system for measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of instruction. Although it can be used to guide instruction for a range of learner profiles and skills, most documented applications of precision teaching have taken place in educational settings^{[2][3][5][6][7]}. The approach originated with Ogden Lindsley, who developed its core methods while working with patients at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts^[7]. Lindsley later introduced the same measurement techniques in special education classrooms in the mid-1960s.

The Great Falls Precision Teaching Project is widely regarded as one of the most successful demonstrations of precision teaching, and informed later development of the precision teaching. Its purpose was to establish a model of educational services for elementary students with learning deficits. The project model evolved over time but is characterized by the following components: staff training, screening, identification, remediation, and direct and daily measurement using the standard celeration chart. Implementing the model required 20– 30 minutes of classroom time each day during which students practiced fundamental prerequisite skills necessary for more complex academic and motor tasks. These fundamental skills were measured and evaluated in terms of the number of times they were performed per minute. For instance, students were found to be much more likely to keep pace with mathematical objectives when they could write numbers at a pace of at least 30 digits per minute^[4]. Remediation focused on repeated practice during one-minute timings to increase students’ ability to perform the skill until it could be done within a predetermined rate window (or aim; e.g., 70–90 digits per minute)^[1]. Once students could perform these fundamental skills at adequate rates, they move onto more difficult tasks in the curricular sequence with the additional goal of generalizing the skills to other academic domains^[1][4].

Following a short period where teachers and staff acclimated themselves to procedures and materials, all of Sacajawea’s staff eventually adopted the model to teach reading, spelling, writing, math geography, penmanship, art, and physical education^[1][2]. As the model expanded and more teachers were trained in the region, professional development sessions began to focus on the history and rationale for the precision teaching, strategies for remediation and skill building, charting student data, and classroom implementation practices^[8].

Project Outcomes

Evidence of Effectiveness

The success of the Great Falls Precision Teaching Project was twice validated to the United States Office of Education’s Joint Dissemination and Review Panel^[1]. Unlike many compensatory education programs that demonstrated short-term gains followed by a “washout,” the outcomes associated with the precision teaching model proved durable. A three-year follow-up study found sustained academic improvements across multiple subject areas^[4].

First Review

The first review, conducted in 1975, presented evidence on the impact precision teaching had on the performance of students with mild learning disabilities over one academic year. The study included data from six schools of similar sizes and compositions (e.g., class sizes, teacher-student ratios, family income levels). Three schools implemented precision teaching (experimental group) and three served as control schools, each with students in the lower quartile of the first, second, and third grade. Results showed that 15 (79%) of the experimental groups performed statistically superior on post-test examinations when compared to their control group counterparts^[1].

Further testing of students in both experimental and control groups following the 1975 review provided evidence the precision teaching model’s effects maintained after its withdrawal. In 1976, students in the experimental group demonstrated minimal regression towards the control student performance levels three years after the model’s introduction in 1973.

Second Review

The second review, conducted in 1979, analyzed data from a longitudinal study of student performance across multiple years and resulted in the model’s validation for use in general education classrooms. The study followed cohorts of fourth grade students across consecutive years. Each cohort had one additional year of exposure to the model than the previous group with progress measured using the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Students receiving the precision teaching model demonstrated superior performance to the control group by 20 percentile points in reading and up to 40 percentile points in math. In 1981, as a result of the second review, the State of Montana Office of Public Instruction approved the integration of the precision teaching model into math and English programs at the elementary, middle, and high school levels^[1].

Dissemination

On-Site Trainings

The precision teaching model developed during the Great Falls project was documented in a manual designed to help guide implementation. Trainees observed experienced teachers demonstrate the model in their own classrooms where follow-up questions could be asked. Trainees additionally learned about the model’s procedures from the classroom students^[1].

Off-Site Trainings

Off-site (second generation) training sites were established to disseminate the precision teaching model to other parts of the United States. Sessions at these sites were led by program coordinators and lead trainers who had received training at Sacajawea. Second-generation sites, and its trainers, were required to hold certification that demonstrated their adherence to the original precision teaching model used at Sacajawea Elementary School. Certified trainers used nearly identical materials, training structures, and activities as those found in the original project. Trainers were required to maintain their certification through ongoing competency checks. As the demand for training grew, conferences were eventually held for certified trainers to share the outcomes of their activities and refine their practices. Dissemination efforts resulted in the model’s adoption in 44 states, 3 provinces in Canada, and multiple school districts in England totaling over 8,000 trained educators^[1].

Life After the Project

In 1985, the materials from the Great Falls Precision Teaching Project were published by Sopris West Educational Services. The materials published included the Basic Skill Builders Handbook and One Minute: Academic Functional Assessment and Interventions, which captured the core curricular components of the model.

1. Beck, R., & Clement, R. (1991). The Great Falls precision teaching project: An historical examination. Journal of Precision Teaching, 8(2), 8–12.
2. Binder, Carl; Watkins, Cathy L. (2008-10-22). "Precision Teaching and Direct Instruction: Measurably Superior Instructional Technology in Schools". Performance Improvement Quarterly. 3 (4): 74–96. doi:10.1111/j.1937-8327.1990.tb00478.x.
3. Kubina, Richard M.; Morrison, Rebecca S. (2000-05-01). "Fluency in Education". Behavior and Social Issues. 10 (1): 83–99. doi:10.5210/bsi.v10i0.133. ISSN 2376-6786.
4. Beck, R. (1977). Remediations of learning deficits through precision teaching: A follow-up study [Doctoral dissertation, University of Montana]. https://www.proquest.com/docview/302830670?fromopenview=true&pq-origsite=gscholar&sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses
5. Evans, Amy L.; Bulla, Andrew J.; Kieta, Andrew R. (September 2021). "The Precision Teaching System: A Synthesized Definition, Concept Analysis, and Process". Behavior Analysis in Practice. 14 (3): 559–576. doi:10.1007/s40617-020-00502-2. ISSN 1998-1929. PMC 7781427. PMID 33425240.
6. Gist, Corinne; Bulla, Andrew J. (2022-03-01). "A Systematic Review of Frequency Building and Precision Teaching with School-Aged Children". Journal of Behavioral Education. 31 (1): 43–68. doi:10.1007/s10864-020-09404-3. ISSN 1573-3513.
7. Potts, Lisa; Eshleman, John W.; Cooper, John O. (1993-10-01). "Ogden R. Lindsley and the Historical Development of Precision Teaching". The Behavior Analyst. 16 (2): 177–189. doi:10.1007/BF03392622. ISSN 2196-8918. PMID 22478145.
8. Beck, R. (1981). Precision teaching training: A follow-up study, 1975-1980 [Unpublished manuscript]. http://binde1.verio.com/wb_fluency.org/Unpublished/BeckLovittCallahan1981.pdf