#178: How to Apply Errorless Learning Principles in Practical Training Sessions

Drinking From the Toilet: Real dogs, Real training

Drinking from the Toilet: Real Dogs, Real Training

Dogobedience, Dogtraining, Hobbies, Kids & Family, Leisure, Showdogtraining, Puppytraining, Dogbehavior, Dogagility, Pets & Animals

4.7 • 677 Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In his 1968 book, The Technology of Teaching, B.F. Skinner wrote:

Errors are not a function of learning or vice-versa nor are they blamed on the learner. Errors are a function of poor analysis of behavior, a poorly designed shaping program, moving too fast from step to step in the program and the lack of the prerequisite behavior necessary for success in the program. - BF Skinner

And that sounds great. It also sounds like a lot of pressure on the dog trainer. Never fear! In this episode, we discuss what errorless learning actually means and how to apply the principles in our real life training sessions.

In this episode, we discuss the original research on errorless learning by Dr. H.S. Terrace form 1963, what is the difference between errorless training and trial-and-error trainings?, why we care about training with errors - what’s in it for us dog trainers?, designing our training sessions so that we don’t rely on extinction as a training tool, and in fact actively structure our sessions to minimize our dogs’ experience of extinction, strategies allow us to train more errorlessly (fading in discriminations - early and often, using back-chaining, even when shaping small behaviors, introducing a new element between the click and the treat, setting your minimum criteria to earn a click to behaviors your dog is doing frequently, and avoid raising criteria to something your dog has never done, or only done once).

For full show notes, visit: www.hannahbranigan.dog/podcast/178
This podcast is supported by Patreon: www.patreon.com/DFTT

Transcript

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0:00.0	So, you know, something like a sit or a down, you think that that's a single behavior,
0:05.2	oh, but if you're sufficiently nerdy, you can see how many different movements go into
0:10.5	the complex beauty of a perfect foldback down. Hey there, fellow training nerds, you're listening to drinking from the toilet.
0:35.2	If you like to geek out about combining the science of behavior
0:37.8	with positive reinforcement philosophy in real life, you've come to the right place. And I'm your host,
0:42.6	Hannah Branigan, teacher, trainer, podcaster, and author of the book, Awesome Obedience,
0:47.0	and its companion, Awesome Obedience, the field guide, which are both available from clickertraining.com.
0:53.5	In this episode, I want to talk about errorless learning and how we can apply that in our
1:00.1	training. And I know errorless learning is a topic that we've spent some time on before,
1:04.6	but I felt like it was time to revisit it. And it's the sort of thing that I have to revisit
1:08.6	for myself and my own training on a regular
1:11.3	basis. And I do think that the way that I think about it, you know, evolves, hopefully
1:16.8	clarifies over time. And I thought that might be true for you as well. So we're going to take
1:21.7	into that. But before we do, I got to send a shout out to some awesome folks who support this
1:26.7	podcast on Patreon. So big thanks to
1:30.5	Divia E, KD, H, Almog G, and Delinda D. I love you. You're awesome. And I really appreciate you.
1:39.9	If you would like to support the podcast, get your questions answered, and get access to
1:44.9	some super secret extra podcast episodes, you can go to patreon.com slash DFTT. In fact, our next
1:52.9	patrons-only Q&A, I believe, is on Thursday, July 20th. We have them every month. So if you want to get in on that, clock's ticking.
2:03.8	Okay, so let's talk about errorless learning. So whenever we're having this conversation,
2:08.9	I really like to start with talking about what, at least what I know about the history of the
2:14.7	procedure, where the term came from. Okay, so in 1963, Dr. Herbert
	...

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