JOURNAL OF PRECISION TEACHING 1995, XII, 9 - 17 NUMBER 2 (SPRING 1995)
Precision Teaching: By Teachers for Children
Ogden R. Lindsley
People often state that I developed Precision
Teaching.When a student
charts these "counts" on the Standard
Celeration Chart, performance changes, or
learning can be seen readily. Using the Chart,
the student has a visual display of past
performance and can see how performance
must be changed to meet current aims or
standards. Many teachers have found that
behavior changes are much greater when
students take such an active role. Policy 3: Use Standard Charts to
Display Major Changes
Skinner often urged his graduate students to
look for important variables that produced
major changes in behavior. He cautioned
against wasting time measuring unimportant,
small changes in behavior. At the time, I was
aware that our cumulative response recorders
forced us to look at major changes in response
frequency in our laboratories. However, it was
not until 1969, after 4 years of charting on
standard multiply scales, that I understood
why. I note? that in all cases the cumulative
response recorders were built to display
doublings in frequency on their charts. This
doubling forced laboratory researchers to
search for powerful interventions that produced
at least a doubling in response frequency. In the Harvard Medical School Behavior
Research Laboratory at Metropolitan State
Hospital, the patients' response rates were
automatically recorded on cumulative response
recorders throughout each daily session. These
cumulative response records displayed changes
in their behavior frequencies within
experimental sessions. Changes in behavior
frequencies between and across sessions from
week to week and month to month were
charted by hand on 8 112- by 1 l-inch, 10-
squares-to-the-inch chart paper. This paper
was limited in the number of changes it could
record, and as behavior frequencies increased,
we had to rechart two or three times. However, it was not until I was training
teachers at the University of Kansas Children's
Rehabilitation Unit that I was compelled to
have a custom chart printed. The teachers met
once a week for a 3-hour class. I required that
they improve a behavior of one of their pupils
and also one of their own behaviors. The
teachers shared their progress on these
behavior change projects by showing charts in
class each week. It took 20 to 30 minutes to
share one behavior project because most of this
time was spent describing each teacher's
unique charting and recording system. In desperation, I had a Standard Chart printed
with the full range of behavior frequencies,
from 1 per day to 1,000 per minute, on a
multiply (or logarithmic) scale up from the left,
or short side of the paper. The long side had
140 calendar days, or 20 weeks, which is
about 1 school semester. This chart had
several advantages. First, by accommodating the full range of
behavior frequencies on one Chart, a teacher
could record any behavior of interest. Behaviors with low frequencies (e.g., a student
getting into one or two fights per day) and
those with high frequencies (e.g., a student
reading several hundred words per minute)
could be recorded on the same type of chart,
eliminating the need for interpretation. Second, student performance data from an
entire semester could be recorded on one Chart. Third, the logarithmic scale also made it
possible to measure the rate of learning or
celeration. Fourth, later we learned that the Chart could be
used to accurately predict future performance,
which helped in making decisions. For
example, if learning was slow and the
prediction was that several weeks would be
required to master an objective, a teacher could
try something else and accelerate learning. In order to standardize the interpretation of rate
of learning and accurate prediction and to
promote major changes in student performance,
I designed the Chart so that a line from the
lower left corner to the upper right comer of the
grid represented a doubling in frequency every
week (celeration period). This an& of about
33 degrees was the most sensitive part of the
slope of the Chart. If the central slope of the
Chart was a doubling, it should prompt our
teachers to produce doublings of their pupils'
frequencies each week. In the same way that
the doubling cumulative response recorder
grids prompted the early laboratory free-
operant conditioners to search for major
variables, I hoped that the Standard Chart
doubling would prompt our precision teachers
to discover major classroom variables that
would accelerate learning. Because the Standard Celeration Chart forces
us to look for at least doublings in pupil
performance frequency, it blinds us to very
small changes. For this reason many
researchers avoid the Standard Celeration Chart
because it makes the small changes they may '
have produced (e.g., changes from 11 to 13
responses per minute) look trivial. In fact,
when changes from 11 to 100 responses per
minute can be produced easily, a change from
1 1 to 13 is trivial and should be seen as such. Policy 4: The Child Knows Best
When I was a graduate student, I trained a rat
whose behavior did not extinguish exactly as
the charts in Skinner's (1938) book had
shown. My rat had at first responded much
more rapidly when his responding was no
longer reinforced. This rapid responding went
on for about 30 minutes, at which time the rat
stopped abruptly. I took the cumulative record
of the rat's unusual extinction to Dr. Skinner
and asked him how this happened. How could
the rat do this when the book showed a very
different gradual extinction curve? Skinner
answered, "In this case, the book is wrong!And I answer, "Then please go back and ask
him, because, after all, the child knows best." . '. Contributions of Precision
Teachers
Applying these founding policies of Precision
Teaching has enabled many teachers to
discover effective teaching techniques. Some of
these discoveries are mentioned here. Academic pegormance can be accelerated by
Chart display. In 1965, Lois Cox, supervised
by Thomas Caldwell, found that pupil
academic performance frequencies increased
when pupils displayed their Charts. Lois also
found that fourth-grade children enjoyed
computing and charting their own daily
performance frequencies. Self-recording is simplified with wrist tally
cards. In 1966, Jean Stables cut 3- by 5-inch
blank cards in half and held the 2 112- by 3-
inch card to her wrist with a watch strap. She
used this wrist tally card to record six or seven
different behaviors. At the end of the day, the
tallies were counted and charted and the dated
cards were filed in a card box. Pupils can count academic and nonacademic
behaviors and display their performance on the
Standard Celeration Chart. In 1967, Carl
Koenig, under my supervision, taught a special
class of six 9- to 1 1-year-old boys classified as
emotionally disturbed. The pupils timed and
counted their own arithmetic and both silent
and oral reading frequencies. Each pupil also
counted one nonacademic behavior (Koenig,
1967). Koenig's master's thesis at the U. of
Kansas was the first to use the term Precision
Teaching and the first to include Standard
Celeration Charts. The chart was called six-
cycle semilog graph paper at the time, and was
later called the standard behavior chart
(Pennypacker, Koenig, & Lindsley, 1972). Still later, the chart was correctly named
Standard Celeration Chart, because what is
standard on the chart is the angle of the
celeration lines. A line from the lower left
comer to the upper right comer represents a
learning in which performance doubles every
celeration period (i.e., times 2.0 per week, per
month, per 6 months, or every 5 years,
depending on the version of the chart that is
employed). A line from the upper left corner to
the lower right comer represents unlearning, or
deceleration, in which performance halves each
celeration period (i.e., divide by 2.0 per week,
per month, per 6 months, or every 5 years). Self-selected competencies are more eflective
than teacher-selected. In, 1969, Karen A.
Curtis, supervised by Tom Lovitt, found that
higher academic response frequencies occurred
when the pupils selected their own reward
contingenciea'than when the teacher selected
them (Lovitt & Curtis, 1969). Pupils with orthopedic handicaps can chart
their own behaviors. In 1969, Sally Slezak,
under my supervision, taught two different
classes of 'children with orthopedic handicaps. The first year she taught 8 primary pupils: 4
paraplegic qerehral palsied, 3 spina bifida, and
1 brain damaged. Of these, 4 were severe and
4 were mobile. ,The second year she taught 7
intermediate pupils: 3 paraplegic cerebral
palsied, 2 spina bifida, 1 muscular dystrophy,
and 1 chronic health disorder. Of these, 1 was
severe and 6 were ambulatory. All the children
used wrist counters, which they purchased
with points they earned, to count their own
nonacademic behaviors. Wrist tally boards
were used to count up to six or seven behaviors
on the same tally card. The daily tally cards
were dated and kept by the children. . '
Sally discovered that they could use masking
tape strips (better known as "stickies") to
record behaviors.(Channels refer to the
pathways by which the student receives
information and produces a response: for
example, see and write, see and say, and hear
and write.) David found not only that correct
learning and error learning were independent,
but also that the learning in one channel ("See
the name"IwPoint to the picture") was
independent from the learning in another
channel ("Hear the namem/ "Place your hand in
the position"). Just as Young and Johnson had
found that three curricula can be tried at once
because their learning is independent, Keller
found that two or more channels can be tried at
once each day because their learning is also
independent. A leap-up in curriculum improves learning and
motivation. In 1979, Marilyn Chappel,
supervised by her principal, Gene Stromberg,
taught her second-grade class at Garfield
School, Ottawa, Kansas, basic mathematics
facts. Figure 2 is a copy of Hollie's
mqthematics chart for the fall semester. She
looked at basic mathematics problems and
wrote the answers on Precision Teaching
practice sheets during 1-minute timings
(seelwrite). The dots on the Chart represent
her frequency of correct additions during her
best timing each day. The small x's are her
error frequencies per minute each day. Learning (celeration) lines are drawn through
the dots and x's to show the slopes of the
correct and error learning in 'each curriculum
phase. . . b '. Note that the +5 and +6 addition problem
phases produced correct learning, but little
error learning. When +5 and i 6 addition
problems were mixed on the same practice
sheet (the next two phases), error learning did
not occur either. However, when all basic
addition facts and all basic subtraction facts
were mixed with basic multiplication facts and
practiced without prior instruction (+, -,x)
Hollie had both high correct (x1.6) and higher
error (110.0) learning! Essentially the same beneficial effect of the
curriculum leap-up on Hollie's correct learning
(advancing well ahead in the curriculum to a
new instructional objective) was seen on all the
other children's learning. Their median correct
frequency jumped down from 120 to 4 per
minute from the last day of "mixed +5 and +6"
to the first day of "mixed add, subtract, and
multiply facts." Naming their "learning pictures" can help
students monitor progress. In 1977, Pat All,
under my supervision, taught her regular
seventh-grade shdents to count and chart the
words they spelled correctly. She had them
sort their charts according to the patterns of
data, called learning pictures, 'She asked them
to name the pictures by their p.atterns. Figure 1
illustrates the learning pictures hamkd. The code in Figure 1 shows the correct
celeration or learning line as solid line with an
arrow at its left end. It would have been drawn
through the daily correct frequencies that had
been charted. It is moving as on the Chart
from left to right. It should be considered as a
vector in motion, the arrow pointing .to where
the performance is going. The error learning
line is short dashes with an arrow pointing in
its direction. The record floor (the lowest
frequency that can occur) is shown as two
horizontal long dashes at the bottom of each
picture. These floor lines indicate that each
picture is about two weeks long. The floor
lines also show how far the frequencies are
above the Floor. Note that in the Aim picture
the errors are below the floor, showing zero
errors are being made. The students named Jaws after the wide-open
jaws of the shark famous in a thriller movie the
prior summer. Snowplow, Uphill, and
Downhill came from the positions of snow skis
while skiing. In Climb, Takeoff and Landing
the correct celeration line is the flight of an
airplane and its related error line is the surface
of the ground. In Surface and Dive the correct
line is the surface of the sea, and the error line
is the path of a submarine. Note that all the
names describe motion, showing that the
students knew their learning is dynamic and
has direction and that their performance is
almost always changing for better or for worse. These relationships are useful as memory aids
in sharing these learning picture names with
other students. / Figure 1 1
THIRTEEN LEARNING
PICTURES
-------- IMPROVING PICTURES ------------
Line Code:
-----) \
Cross- Jaws Take- Cllmb Uphlll Dlve Record
over off floor
--- MAINTAINING ---
-------WORSEN1 NG -------
The students saw pictures with corrects
maintaining and errors maintaining not as one
picture, but as three very different pictures. One picture on which both frequencies were
very low was known as the "Rock-Bottom."Acceleration of inter-city
elementary school pupils' reading pe~ormance.Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Lindsley, 0...17