At 12:59 PM -0500 11/16/04, Stephen Black wrote:
Well, it turns out that there's a psychology connection to the "My
pet goat" story and George's lost seven minutes.
The connection is that the story was not "My pet goat" (Michael Moore
got the title wrong, and what does _that_ tell us about his accuracy)
but "The pet goat", and the author is Siegfried Engelmann.
I recognize that name because I used early readers of his to teach my
two kids to read between the ages of 2 and 3 (just for fun, and yes
they did). I chose his books specifically because they used a phonics
approach and incorporated principles of operant conditioning,
especially prompting and fading, to ensure systematic progress with a
minimum of errors. I used to reinforce them using Froot Loops, among
other things. I believe his all-operant approach to education was one
of the more successful in the Head Start programme (known as Direct
Instruction). It also has the distinction (as befits an operant
conditioning approach) of being one of the few to be rigorous in
documenting its effectiveness (just like John Marton). Of course,
many distrusted it for just that reason (see url below).
It seems it continues to be successful. It certainly worked for
George.
See http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?040726ta_talk_radosh
For the current operant teaching technology see:
http://www.headsprout.com/
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* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Dept Minnesota State University *
* 23 Armstrong Hall, Mankato, MN 56001 ph 507-389-6217 *
* http://www.mnsu.edu/dept/psych/welcome.html *
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