Skinner’s Teaching Machine
By: Abhishek Solanki
Tags: Adaptive Learning, Systems Thinking, Education

B.F.Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, and author. He propagated his own theory of learning, which was primarily based on his beliefs that humans do not function on free will and rather changes in human behavior are a response to external events that occur in the environment. A response produces a consequence such as defining a word, hitting a ball, or solving a math problem. When a particular Stimulus-Response (S-R) pattern is reinforced (rewarded), the individual is conditioned to respond.

Skinner Teaching Machine. Source.

Based on these very ideas, Skinner in 1954, came up with something called a teaching machine. The whole idea behind which was to teach classroom subject such as maths, spelling etc. using a mechanical device that would also surpass the usual classroom experience.

He believed the classroom had disadvantages because the rate of learning for different students was variable and reinforcement was also delayed due to the lack of individual attention. Since personal tutors for every student was usually unavailable, Skinner developed a theory of programmed learning that was to be implemented by teaching machines.

The teaching machine was composed of mainly a program, which was a system of combined teaching and test items that carried the student gradually through the material to be learned. The “machine” was composed of a fill-in-the-blank method on either a workbook or on a computer. If the student was correct, he/she got reinforcement and moved on to the next question. If the answer was incorrect, the student studied the correct answer to increasing the chances of getting reinforced next time.

Thus, we see that the whole idea was not just to replace teachers with machines in order to gain efficiency, but was heavily based on Skinner’s learning theory of the response/reward mechanism. Skinner also noted that the learning process should be divided into a large number of very small steps and reinforcement must be dependent upon the completion of each step. He believed this was the best possible arrangement for learning because it took into account the rate of learning for each individual student.

Skinner proposed that machines based on his theory of operant conditioning could not only be used to teach school subjects but also to promote the development of behaviors that Skinner called ‘Self-Management’. The skinner learning machine and his theory of stimuli-response behavior theory have given birth to the modern concepts of ‘Adaptive Learning Systems’.

One of the biggest challenges in the field of education is to provide individualized and tailor-made programs for each individual on a massive scale. And lately, it's being realized that this is not possible with the traditional approaches. The field that is emerging as an answer to this problem is that of adaptive learning systems. Adaptive learning or also known as adaptive teaching uses algorithms to give constant feedback, make observations and deliver customised resources which address the needs of individual learners.

So we see that the whole idea of creating a system of teaching based on individual needs and behavioral psychology principles of conditioning which came into the limelight with Skinner’s teaching machine is now taking new forms with adaptive teaching and e-learning.