As I’ve mentioned previously, I teach an undergraduate behavior analysis class during the fall and spring semesters. As part of the class, my students do an extended project that involves teaching a series of behaviors to a pet. The majority of my students have zero animal training experience before taking the class. All of the […]
Where are you going? The importance of objectives
As I mentioned last month, I’m currently redesigning the undergraduate behavior analysis class that I teach. One big part of the redesign process is deciding exactly what I want students to get out of the new version of the course. That is, at the end of the course what should students know and what should […]
Building confidence with backchaining
I’m in Denver currently at the 43rd annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International. This is the seventh year that I’ve attended the ABAI convention. It’s a huge affair that brings together several thousand individuals who are interested in the science and practice of behavior analysis – with both humans and other animals. […]
When teaching doesn’t equal learning
I do several different types of teaching and training. In addition to working directly with animals, a huge part of what I do is teaching people how to train their pets. I also teach a class for undergraduate students in the behavior analysis department at our local university. The same basic principles of learning apply […]
A few thoughts about poisoned cues
This post is part of my notes from the 2017 ClickerExpo conferences. You can find more of my ClickerExpo notes on the Conference notes page. At the Portland ClickerExpo and again at the Stamford ClickerExpo I attended Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz’s lecture on poisoned cues. You may be asking: Why attend the same lecture twice? Poisoned […]
Drill Bit in the news
As some of you know, I do some volunteer training for a service dog organization called Patriot Paws. They are here in north Texas, based out of Rockwall, Texas. Patriot Paws trains service dogs for veterans with disabilities – both physical disabilities and post-traumatic stress. Last summer, I worked with a dog named Logan, who […]