Skinner's Teaching Machine

The teaching machine was a mechanical device whose purpose was to administer a curriculum of programmed instruction.

The machine embodies key elements of B. F. Skinner’s theory of learning and had important implications for education in general and classroom instruction in particular.

In one incarnation, the machine was a box that housed a list of questions that could be viewed one at a time through a small window.

There was also a mechanism through which the learner could respond to each question. Upon delivering a correct answer, the learner would be rewarded.

Skinner advocated the use of teaching machines for a broad range of students (e.g., preschool aged to adult) and instructional purposes (e.g., reading and music). For example, one machine that he envisioned could teach rhythm. He wrote:

A relatively simple device supplies the necessary contingencies. The student taps a rhythmic pattern in unison with the device. "Unison" is specified very loosely at first (the student can be a little early or late at each tap) but the specifications are slowly sharpened. The process is repeated for various speeds and patterns. In another arrangement, the student echoes rhythmic patterns sounded by the machine, though not in unison, and again the specifications for an accurate reproduction are progressively sharpened. Rhythmic patterns can also be brought under the control of a printed score.