The Technology of Teaching

by B.F. Skinner

Utilizes the results of psychological studies and experiments to substantiate the case for the use of individualized programmed instruction

Genres: Psychology, Education, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Science

Paperback

First published January 1, 1968

About the author

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was a highly influential American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. He invented the operant conditioning chamber, innovated his own philosophy of science called Radical Behaviorism, and founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behavior. His analysis of human behavior culminated in his work Verbal Behavior, which has recently seen enormous increase in interest experimentally and in applied settings. He discovered and advanced the rate of response as a dependent variable in psychological research. He invented the cumulative recorder to measure rate of responding as part of his highly influential work on schedules of reinforcement. In a recent survey, Skinner was listed as the most influential psychologist of the 20th century. He was a prolific author, publishing 21 books and 180 articles.

Reviews

[Manuel Illanes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the lost gem of every teacher shelf. The future of education is in the hand of those who applies the knowledge in this book. Must be taught in every University.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as I'm concerned, this is the definitive text on education. Should be required reading for all teacher training programs.

[Linda Berberich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was written before I was born, but it was the reason I pursued a doctoral degree in behavior analysis. Skinner's work has been maligned and largely misunderstood, as evidenced by some of the misconceptions I've read in the lower rated reviews of this collection of articles. Teaching machines allow for adaptive, individualized instruction in a way that no teacher could accomplish, and anticipated what we now know is entirely possible with the rise of big data, better processing power and newer machine learning algorithms and techniques. Indeed, reinforcement learning and GANS, two of the newer ML models, take a page directly out of Skinner's work, whether or not the innovators of such tech knew that that's what they were doing. The combination of Skinner's work outlined here with modern AI/ML techniques can and will revolutionize education. Teachers, look out. The machines are here to steal your jobs, and it is in the best interest of humanity if they are successful in doing so.

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic

This is a book that I go back and re-read from time to time. The collection of essays presented continue to be relevant to today’s issues and offer thought and guidance on how the technology of teaching can and should be used to “right the ship” of an education system gone far off course.

[Kate]

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[Amanda Hasan · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the world of behaviorist pedagogy, Skinner is THE MAN. If you're a behaviorist, you will like this book...however, I align with a more Humanism/Progressivism approach to education, so I disagreed with much of what he had to say. Skinner's beliefs about the ways students learn does not sit well with me (especially his belief that all organisms - children and pigeons alike - learn in the *exact* same way). He goes on to assert that every child in a given environment will learn in the exact same way and that you can teach each child identically. I worry, for example, that his approach leaves tons of room for the invasion of the civil rights of SPED students under IDEA.