1904-1990
Professor of Minnesota, Indiana University, Harvard University

Operant Conditioning Theory Leads to Teaching Machines.

B. F. Skinner, one of the best-known learning theorists, first attracted popular attention during the late 1950s and the 1960s. Although for decades Skinner had been actively researching how and why humans behave as they do and what role random trial and error plays in learning (for example, during World War II he had devised an operant-conditioning procedure for training pigeons to direct missile missions), it was his resounding success in teaching children with programmed learning machines that made his name easily recognizable. A pioneer in the use of automated learning, Skinner's work with colleagues in producing the first linear program for teaching introductory psychology at Harvard was widely reported, but he also devised programs for elementary-school children and for junior-high introductory algebra students. But it is Skinner's intellectual achievement...