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Off the Beaten Path

Mini-Horse, Maxi-Guide

By KPCT on 03/01/2005

Ann Edie is blind. And, like many blind people, she used a guide dog to help her get around. When her dog suddenly died, it was a very sad thing for Ann. Not only did she miss her special friend, but she also missed his help. What would she do?

She could use her white cane, of course. And she could get another guide dog. But dogs can work for only a few years. So she came up with a different idea: "What about a guide HORSE?"

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Clicker Training Transforms Families at Risk: SHIP

By KPCT on 03/01/2005
"Dogs and cats, like us, have feelings. They cannot be abused or treated unfairly. Please treat your animals the way you Want to be treated."
-Five-year-old SHIP program participant

Many clicker trainers have experienced it. You are training your dog, clicking and reinforcing for desired behavior, making swift progress toward your goal, and communicating with your animal at a level you never dreamed possible. Suddenly, it dawns on you that clicker training is so much more than a training technique; it is a powerful new way of interacting, a technology and a philosophy rolled into one-that can change lives.

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Click Air: Clicker Trained Flight Instruction, Part 2

By KPCT on 03/01/2005

I was convinced that clicker training works in the flight simulator environment, helping the instructor to be very precise in reinforcing all the "microtasks" or small behavioral skills being asked of the student. Now, I wondered, how would it work in the air? I was working toward becoming a flight instructor. I looked forward to adapting the methods of clicker training (a.k.a. operant conditioning), to the flight training industry, while still working within the Federal Aviation Administration directives and guidelines (which, interestingly, actually propose use of techniques developed by B.F. Skinner…)

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Click Air: Clicker Trained Flight Instruction, Part 1

By KPCT on 02/01/2005

My flight instructor was younger than I was, a nice lad I'm sure, but he couldn't seem to find the Initial Approach Fix (a point in space we aim our aircraft at on an instrument approach) for an arc-shaped entry to the final approach out over the high desert in Southern California. He knew that he ought to know and was appropriately embarrassed. We circled and found our way eventually; but it was the proverbial "straw" that made me stop and evaluate my flight, my flight training and flight training in general. Why do instrument-rated pilots continue to make CFIT (controlled flight into terrain)? Could bad training be the root of "pilot error," "loss of control" from "spatial disorientation," and chronic deterioration of "proficiency" over time? What could I do to insure that I wasn't trained poorly?

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Backward Shaping in Spiking and Blocking

By Alan Roaf on 01/01/2005

1. Backward shaping is a teaching procedure whereby the last step in a learning sequence is taught first and mastered. Then the next to last step is taught, mastered, and then built onto the final step. The process is systematically added on back to the initial stage of the sequence. The desired sequence is taught in reverse.

2. This does not teach someone to perform the movement backwards. The procedure starts with the end point action and merely develops or shapes the movement from that stage. Everything is focused on building into the final point. Gradually the form of the entire action takes place.

3. The probability of learning interference from previously mastered skill is eliminated.

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