This course will help you:
- Think scientifically about animal training and behavior consulting for all species.
- Understand and break training into component principles.
- Understand environmental events that maintain behavior.
- Increase your ability to be humane and effective.
- Understand how labels such as “aggressive” or “submissive” cloud our thinking and our work.
- Consider what we are describing when we say an animal is “confident,” “creative,” “a problem solver,” and how we should approach those learners.
- See the common principles at play in different animals & species.
- Become a more effective and humane trainer by cutting through the jargon and directly assessing behavior.
Duration: 4 weeks
Instructor: JoAnna Platzer, B.Sc. & Dr. Erica Feuerbacher
Course Activities, Objectives, & Assessment
Online Lectures: Each week there will be several short videos (10-20 minutes each; typically 60-90 minutes total per week) that will discuss the topics for that week.
Online Readings with Reading Guides: Each week you will have a scientific reading with a guide to help you navigate the reading. The paper will exemplify the principles being discussed that week.
Online Assignments: During Weeks 1-3, you will have 1-2 short online assignments each week. Some of these will entail you giving an example and then giving feedback on examples provided by a few of your fellow students.
Online posts: During Weeks 2-4 you will post two questions, comments or reflections relevant to the material from the previous week to the discussion forum. You will also respond to at least two of your fellow students’ posts from that week (= a total of four posts per week). Your questions and responses will be graded based on their thoughtfulness and completeness.
Final Project: During Week 4, you will complete a final project/paper in which you will synthesize the topics covered to cohesively analyze and scientifically critique publicly available training videos and handouts.
Responses