B.F. Skinner was born as Burrhus Frederic Skinner in Pennsylvania in 1904. Skinner first studied at Hamilton College where he developed a love for writing, and after his graduation he attempted to become a professional writer with no success. Although, throughout his life he did write a few books and several works. One of his most notable books was the novel Walden Two, which was written in 1948. Since his pursuit of becoming a professional writer did not work out, Skinner decided to go back to school. He attended Harvard where he studied psychology and received his doctorate. B.F. Skinner was diagnosed with leukemia in 1989 at the age of 85, and he lost the fight with leukemia the following year in 1990. B .F. Skinner is best known for his …show more content…
The continuous schedule gives the subject a reinforcement after every response. The fixed-interval schedule lets the subject receive reinforcement after a set period of time, and a variable-interval gives reinforcement at varying lengths of time. Fixed-ratio is where the subject has to successfully have a set number of responses in order to receive reinforcement, and variable-ratio is when the subject receives reinforcement after they perform a varying number of responses. Variable schedules are better for operant conditioning because they are not predictable like the continuous and fixed …show more content…
This is an example of how operant conditioning is used in the classroom. The students are getting positive reinforcement by staying on the best color, Blue, or being able to move back up to blue due to good behavior. When they misbehave and have to move their clip down to green or yellow, they are getting reinforcement that they need to correct their actions. Once the students reach the lowest color, red, then they receive “punishment” by being removed from the classroom and having to discuss what is happening. There are many other ways that operant conditioning is used in education. Another example is grades. Students are being conditioned by the grades they are given, and the grades are the positive and negative