Candace's ePortfolio

Before knowing about the formal terms or details of teaching someone a task, I knew the rough edges of what was needed in order for it to work. Things like rewards or punishments worked effectively and allowed parents to have their own way of disciplining and raising their children. It also let teachers or instructors inform their students about what happens when they don’t fulfill certain requirements. All of that was fairly easy to see before, but now knowing the basic idea behind it makes it all the more interesting.

After learning about the information on teaching-disciplining, or conditioning, it was really fun to look at the various types of conditioning used and see how effective it was. Actually doing a conditioning myself was easier said than done in my case. It would have been a lot more interesting if my subject hadn’t been so resistant at times but it was enjoyable seeing them so the task given to them and look forward to their reward. It really made me look back and see how I was conditioned, or raised in this case, and what my parents used as a reinforcement.

Along with that, I’ve also seen that conditioning a pet is a very common way to train them. A reinforcement is used to keep the pet in order and obedient when training them and it eventually conditions them into behaving and listening to their owners. I have a dog of my own but we never trained her properly, so she’s very disobedient and resistant. Trying to condition her now would be wasted effort since she’s very old now and won’t do anything anyways.

It really is amazing to see the many different ways on how people condition others into completing a task given to them. Everything from sweet treats to harsh punishment, the result is practically the same every time. Anyone could do it. It just depends on how effective their reinforcement is.