The Technology of Teaching REVISITED: A Reader's Companion to B.F. Skinner's Book

by Beatrice H. Barrett

Skinner desperately wanted his science to be applied to improve instruction methods. Yet he wrote his only book on education not for educators but for sophisticates in his experimental analysis of behavior, its operant methodology and its radical behaviorist foundation. Technology of REVISITED examines this issue, tracing contextual factors that account for his decision and describing prerequisite conceptual tools assumed to be fluent in the reader's repertoire. Developments contemporaneous with and following the programmed instruction-teaching machine era illustrate how Skinner's pioneering contributions participate in a meld of reciprocally enhancing methods that has produced the most consistently demonstrated powerfully effective instructional technology available today.

132 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002