Equiosity

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Episode 202: Our Horses Connecting To Us - Pt 1: Colic Sep 16, 2022

Show notes

I was worried about putting colic in the title of this episode. I thought that might scare some people off. It can be such a sad subject. So many of us have either lost horses to colic or known friends who have. Colic can come on so fast and it is so very painful. It isn’t like a long illness where there is time to prepare and time to say good-bye. When a horse survives a bout of colic, there is always a fear that there will be another one. So this is a heavy topic. We didn’t start off wanting to talk about colic. Originally Dominique and I thought we needed to shift gears a bit after so many podcasts that drew on academic research to talk about lighter subjects. The best laid plans and all that. Dominique had a list of topics that she wanted to talk about that came from discussions in my new on-line clinics. We began by talking about the connections that emerge with our horses through this training. They don’t want to leave us. They stay engaged with us in the training game. That’s where we began and suddenly we were talking about colic. It was one of those conversations where I had to stop and think - how did we get here? There is a connection with connection. So we are talking about colic in this episode, and then to lighten things up, we talk about an essential piece of our clicker training equipment - treat pouches and vests.

Episode 201 Dr Sarah Memmi Pt 2 Extrinsic And Intrinsic Motivation Sep 08, 2022

Show notes

This is Part 2 of our conversation with Dr Sarah Memmi on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Sarah brings a great perspective to this question. She’s an assistant professor of Marketing at the College of Business at the University of Louisville. She’s also a lifelong horse person which makes her a perfect fit for also teaching in the University of Lousiville’s equine business program. Last week Sarah made the following distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation occurs when the reinforcer is bundled with the action such that it’s not easily separable from the action. The reward is in the doing. Extrinsic motivation occurs when the reinforcement is separable from the action itself. An activity can acquire intrinsic reinforcement value through the pairing of the activity with reinforcement. There are four qualities that are important to this process. We covered two of them in Part 1: The first was there’s a unique link between the behavior and the extrinsic reinforcer. The second is repeated pairing between the behavior and a desired outcome. This is something that is very familiar to all of us who clicker train. Part 1 ended just as Sarah was getting to the third factor so that’s where we pick up as we resume the conversation.

Episode 200: Dr Sarah Memmi Pt 1: Extrinsic And Intrinsic Motivation Aug 25, 2022

Show notes

We’re reached another podcasting milestone. This is episode number 200! Pretty staggering, especially when I think about the number both of listening hours and editing hours that represents. In many of those episodes we’ve talked about constructional training. This concept draws on the work of Dr. Israel Goldiamond. Goldiamond poses four questions which form a very useful framework for structuring your training. The first question asks what do you want? What are your goals? And the recommendation is to dream big. The second question gives you your baseline. Where are you now? What skills are in repertoire? What component skills are missing? The third question takes you to your training steps. How are you going to get from where you are now to where you want to be. The fourth question asks what will keep you going? What will keep you motivated. It’s this fourth question that we want to focus on in this conversation. Our guest is Dr Sarah Memmi. Sarah joined us a year ago for a fabulous conversation about choice, control and goal setting, so in a way we were looking at the first question in that conversation. And now we’re going to jump to the fourth. Sarah brings a great perspective to this question. She’s an assistant professor of Marketing at the College of Business at the University of Louisville. She’s also a lifelong horse person which makes her a perfect fit for also teaching in the University of Lousiville’s equine business program. Our subject is going to be intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In this podcast we have talked mainly to behavior analysts. As a behavioral scientist Sarah is drawing on a different body of research, so I was very interested to hear her perspective on this subject. Sarah was trying not to overwhelm us with research references related to how humans behave, and instead in this conversation she is extracting what she thinks is most relevant to those of us who are interested in training.

Episode 199: Dr Claire St Peter - Part 3: Handler Consistency In A Training Loop Aug 17, 2022

Show notes

We are continuing our conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire is a Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University. She is the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at the University - and she is also a horse person. We’re celebrating the publication of an article we wrote together for the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior on Loopy Training. This was in response to a call for papers that the Journal put out last fall that asking for articles that explored the connections between the applied animal behavior community and the broader behavior analytic community. In part 2 we ended in the middle of a discussion on the consistency of handling. Whether we refer to handlers working with animals or teachers working with people, how much of an impact does the consistency of the handler matter? We continue this discussion by looking at microshaping, and a training exercise called “the line of trash” which is intended to encourage the trainer’s creativity.

Episode 198 Dr Claire St Peter Pt 2 Language Puzzles Aug 08, 2022

Show notes

Last week we began a conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire is a Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University. She is the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at the University - and she is also a horse person. We’re celebrating the publication of an article we wrote together for the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior on Loopy Training. This was in response to a call for papers that the Journal put out last fall that asking for articles that explored the connections between the applied animal behavior community and the broader behavior analytic community. Claire asked if I would like to write a paper with her. The result is our article entitled “Connecting Animal Trainers and Behavior Analysts Through Loopy Training.” We celebrated the on-line publication of the article by recording this podcast. Towards the end of Part 1, we talked about what is was like to write an article together, then we started down rabbit holes. In this episode we focus in on the effect that consistency - or the lack of consistency - in the handler has on the learner. We look at chains, stimulus control and procedural integrity. Here's the link to the Loopy training article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/HEMGM6YMDQF7UNJEYTCZ?target=10.1002/jeab.779

Episode 197: Dr Claire St Peter Part 1: Loopy Training Article In JEAB Aug 02, 2022

Show notes

We are beginning a conversation with Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire is currently a Professor of Psychology, the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at West Virginia University. We’re celebrating the publication of an article we wrote together for the Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior on Loopy Training. In this podcast we talk about what it was like to write the article and what is involved in getting an article published in a peer reviewed journal. Then we take you down some of the many rabbit holes we explored as we developed the article. Some of them made it into the final version and some were just fun to explore. Here's the link to the Loopy training article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/HEMGM6YMDQF7UNJEYTCZ?target=10.1002/jeab.779

Episode 196: Lucy Butler Pt 3: Vaccinating Against Violence Jul 29, 2022

Show notes

This is part 3 of our conversation with Lucy Butler. Lucy is a special ed teacher who at the start of the 2021-2022 school year was given the assignment of working with all the students in her high school who had failed ninth grade the previous year. Last week Lucy talked about empowering her students by giving them more choice. She taught them how to write SMART goals for themselves. It was inevitable that the subject of gun violence in schools came up during our conversation. “How insane it is,” Lucy says, “that part of my job as a teacher is thinking about how to protect my students against a gunman.” But then Lucy found a way to transform the discussion into a hopeful message. “What I’m doing is the very best strategy,” she said, “is helping people to feel successful, to feel that they have choice and to feel that they belong. I’m inoculating these kids against violence. I’m giving them the support of belonging and of feeling success. We’re inoculating them against a dysfunctional future. They are developing the skills to create their own success.” We do bring the conversation around to horses. The links are important. No matter who your learners are, Lucy is sharing a hopeful message. If you have friends with school-age children, I hope you’ll share this conversation.

Episode 195: Lucy Butler Part 2: SMART Goals And Ruleg Matrices Jul 20, 2022

Show notes

Lucy Butler is a special ed teacher who at the start of the 2021-2022 school year was given the assignment of working with all the students in her high school who had failed ninth grade the previous year. Lucy had been attending my on-line clinics through the summer and over Labor Day weekend she attended our Science Camp, so she was very excited to apply the concepts of constructional training to her classroom students. With the help of Dr Claire St Peter and two of Claire’s former graduate students, Lucy began the process of changing the lives of her students. In Part 1 Lucy reviewed some of the major lessons from the first half of the year. In Part Two we move into the second half of the year with a discussion of SMART goals. The students were learning that felt good to improve, so now they were further empowered by being asked to develop their own goals. What did they want to improve? Learn about SMART goals and how to use a Ruleg matrix to teach complex concepts.

Episode 194: Lucy Butler Pt 1 :Celebrate Success Jul 14, 2022

Show notes

It’s mid-July. School is out which means it is a great time to have a return visit with Lucy Butler. Lucy is a special ed teacher who at the start of the 2021-2022 school year was given the assignment of working with all the students in her high school who had failed ninth grade the previous year. Lucy is also a horse owner. She attended my on-line clinics through the summer of 2021. Over Labor Day weekend she also attended our Science Camp, so she was very excited to apply the concepts of constructional training to her classroom students. We did an interview with Lucy just as she was finishing up the first half of the school year. She was learning how to celebrate success and her students were thriving. You can listen to that interview in Episode 172 through 174. At the half way point through the school year some of the students were reassigned to other teachers so a natural experiment was taking place. Some of the students would be going through the whole year with Lucy, others would have her part time, others would not be working with her at all in the second half of the year. Of course we wanted to hear how the year turned out for her students. In part 1 of our conversation we review with Lucy some of the major lessons from the first half of the year and we learn how her students did through the full arc of the school year. If you have a child in school, you will very much want to listen to this podcast. (And yes, we do manage to connect the dots to horses.)

Episode 193: Clinic Posts - Pt 2: Yes And No Answers Jul 08, 2022

Show notes

Last week we began a conversation that was centered around the on-line clinics. Even though the clinics are on-line and you go through them at your own pace, they are designed to be interactive. There are many places in them where people can respond to questions that I use to get a conversation going. And we’ve been having some wonderful exchanges that have created a rich resource for everyone in the courses to enjoy. Dominique has chosen a handful of these conversations to highlight. We talk about practical solutions as well as general principles. This week’s topics include the use of the grown-ups-are-talking lesson to help develop emotional stability; starter button versus constant on cues; how to use the “yes” of the click in combination with the “yes” from the lead to build greater communication; and what does “No” look like and what do you do when your horse says, “No”?

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