Can Behaviorism Save Teacher Education?
Competency Based Teacher Education (CBTE) proposes changes in the traditional teacher education system, which include establishing behavioral objectives for student teachers and modifying basic teaching tools that all students must learn to master. CBTE also proposes that teachers colleges be conducted without failure. Critics of CBTE question the effectiveness of behavioral objectives as opposed to the traditional goals of teacher education. They point out that research has not yet identified those explicit, overt teaching behaviors CBTE claims necessary. Another concern of critics of CBTE is the apparent lack of consistency among individual advocates and disagreements over principles. Despite the widespread acceptance of the theories of CBTE, there are still those who maintain that solving the problems of teacher education is not through the learning of behavioral objectives. Their advice for reform of teacher education rests on an avoidance of the spurious claims of CBTE and a categ
