Precision teaching

Precision teaching is a form of training pioneered by Ogden Lindsley in the 1960s and based on Skinner's operant conditioning. There are a number of feature that make teaching vastly more effective. First, is that the performance of interest is self presented so that the rate of doing a task can improve with practice. Second, that rate is charted on celeration charts (as form of log|session paper). Sessions can last anywhere from 1 minute to 1 day. If the rate of doing a desired behavior does not increase, one can almost immediately see it in chart. This allows for the adjustment of aspects of the situation to improve the rate including what behavior is being charted. Charting can be taught to first graders and above. According to Owen White (1986), Precision Teaching "has been used successfully to teach the progress of learners ranging from the severely handicapped to university graduate students, from the very young to the very old" (p. 530).