TAGteach at the Association of Behavior Analysis International Conference

TAGteach will once again host a symposium and a workshop at the Association of Behavior Analysis International Conference. This year the conference is in Denver from May 27-31, 2011.

Symposium: Bridging the Gap Between Response and Reinforcement

Sat May 28, 4:00-5:20 PM

Discussant: Julie Vargas

1. Using Shaping and Student Success to Increase Reinforcement for Teachers
2. Marking What You Want: Using TAGteach With Children With Autism
3.That's It! The Use of Acoustical Markers to Improve Student Responding

Workshop: Using TAGteach to Deliver Instructions and Positive Reinforcement in Various applications Including Precision Teaching

Fri May 27, 4:00-7:00 PM


Click here for conference registration information

TAGteach Certification Requirements

TAGteach offers four levels of certification for TAGteachers:

Primary
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3

The requirements for each of these is described at this link, or you can download a pdf.

We have made some recent changes to the certification process for the Primary level and we have also made some pricing changes.

You can now earn Primary TAGteach certification by taking the online course: Introduction to TAGteach, without attending a live seminar. You must submit your course journals and worksheets for evaluation in order to earn Primary certification. There is an additional fee of $75 if you want to have your materials evaluated. This is payable to TAGteach International at the time of submission for these materials (that is after you have completed the course).

The enrollment fee for the online course is $299.

If you wish to earn Level 1 TAGteach Certification, then you must attend a live TAGteach seminar.

Upcoming TAGteach Seminars

Register now for an open TAGteach Certification Seminar or contact Theresa at t@tagteach.com to schedule a personalized seminar for your group.


Register at http://www.tagteach.com/events or call 704-995-9237 for more details.

If you can't make it to a live seminar, you can take our online course from the comfort of home at your own pace.

Chicago March 2011

Upcoming Seminars

Detroit MI (5/7-8/2011)

Milpitas CA (5/18-19/2011)

Portland OR (6/11-12/2011)

Calgary AB (10/1-2)

Solothurn, Switzerland (10/22-23/2011)

San Diego CA (11/05-06/2011)

Recent comments we have received about TAGteach...

"Absolutely fantastic. Great mix of backgrounds- human behavior analysts, dog trainers, musician, teachers of all backgrounds... lead to a very enriching environment" - Colleen Koch (veterinarian)

As always, love the practicality of TAGteach. We have time to work through our own scenarios and are ready to use TAGteach when we return to the educational environment the very next day.  Sheila Smith (special education - Arkansas)

How to Use Targets - A Gymnastics Example

We love targets at TAGteach! Whenever we can use a physical or visual target to help a learner find the right position we do it.

Here is an example of using targets to help teach a front roll. There are two hand targets to show where the hands should go. The first tag point is "hands to hands".  Repeat this several times until the athlete places her hands reliably and confidently on the target every time.

The next tag point is "head to circle". Tag only when the head is correctly placed on the circle. Repeat this a few times until the athlete places her head reliably and confidently on the target every time.

Once the head placement is correct, allow the rest of the front roll to happen. This is being done on a inclined soft mat and so the roll with happen easily.

Remove the hand targets and continue with the "head to circle" tag point a few more times. Remove the head target and move on to working on other aspects of the skill

If the hand or head placement becomes incorrect then replace the required targets and go back to practicing with the target-related tag points.


Get creative! You can use targets in many different ways and lots of things can be targets. Send us photos to show us how you are using targets to improve efficiency in your teaching.

Basic Principles Article #9: Using TAGteach for Language and Music

By Joan Orr, M.Sc.

TAGteach™ (Teaching with Acoustical Guidance) is a new way of teaching using positive reinforcement with a click sound marker to identify successful performance. In past articles we have talked about the tag point – the exact response, action or position that a teacher pinpoints with a tag (the click sound) to tell the learner “YES, that was right!”, how to associate the audible tag with a tangible reinforcer and how to harness the power of peer tagging. Here we talk about how TAGteach can be used to help reinforce language and music concepts.

Identify the Activity and Break it Down

Use TAGteach as a way to help solidify language and music concepts in a positive way that allows the learner to self-assess performance. The first step is to identify the activities that the learner needs to work on. The next step is to break each activity down into discrete parts that can be tackled one at a time.

A Language Example

A critical part of language instruction is of course, reading. There are many components, including punctuation, pronunciation, word decoding and more. Let’s consider a punctuation example. Beginning readers often read straight through periods without stopping. We would like the reader to take a breath after each period. The tag point is “take a breath after each period”. Start with a 2 sentence paragraph. There is potential to receive two tags, one after each sentence. If the learner hears two tags then another sentence can be added. If not, the learner can identify where the tag should have been heard and can try again. The learner can move a marker from one side of the desk to another while reading as an easy an unobtrusive way to count the tags. The tag counters can be used to control the length of the session. Once all the tokens are moved to the other side of the desk it is time to move on to the next activity.

A Music Example

Learners often have difficulty remembering to play flats and sharps. The traditional way to help them remember is to circle them on the music as a visual reminder and to correct them verbally (or with the help of a ruler in the bad old days) if they make a mistake. Upon making a mistake and hearing a correction the learner invariably stops and starts over from the beginning, thus practicing the first part of the piece over and over and net getting to the last part as many times in one session. This can be prevented by working on one line at a time and by using tag points instead of correcting mistakes. Consider the example of a piece with B flat to be played five times in the first line. Circle all the B flats to highlight them. The tag point is “play B flat at the circle”. If the learner does not get five tags, he can try to identify where the tags were and were not and can try again. The piece can be approached line by line in this manner, or even bar by bar if the learner is having little success.

Next time we will talk about using TAGteach to help teach physical movement.

We invite you to join the TAGteacher discussion group at www.tagteach.com to meet others who are implementing TAGteach in various disciplines and to see the list of upcoming TAGteach seminars.

TAGteach: Why It Works

By Luca Canever

Here is a question with which we all struggle: if somebody asked me where TAGteach can be useful, I do not know what to answer ... The “standard” answer I use sounds like: "TAGteach is useful wherever there are skills to be acquired." It is a broad answer!

On Sunday morning, I'm in the pool with my son. There is a girl who is taking individual swimming lessons in the small pool where we are splashing. I'm listening to the instructions given by the coach: they are precise but too long and hard to remember: "When you start hold both arms outstretched, do not raise your right arm but keep your back straight and arms outstretched. Do not do this movement (the coach mimics this), do not turn the head but stand firmly with your arms. " They Repeat once, twice, three times; roughly the same instructions are repeated, the task does not improve, the results of such commitment from both parties are not seen. I listen and think, "The tag point is: arms outstretched".

TAGteach works because it uses positive reinforcement, because it eliminates frustration, because what it teaches comes in small fragments easily accessible by anyone. Sailors of deep-sea fishing vessels or young gymnasts, does not matter, there is only one answer: TAG!

TAGteach Around the World

We have TAGteachers all around the world and we have been to many countries for training seminars. In several cases the presentations were done in English with simultaneous translation into one or two other languages. One of the reasons that this can actually work is that the practical aspects of the seminar transcend language barriers. There is so much non-verbal about TAGteach that we can develop relationship and work with people who don't speak the same language as we do. In fact we can work with people who don't speak at all!


I thought that you might be interested in knowing about some TAGteach translations in case you know someone who would like to learn more, but doesn't speak Enlgish. Here are the links:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tagteach_en_francais/

http://www.tagteachenfrancais.com/

http://www.tagteach.com/spain/index.html

http://www.tagteach.com/german/index.html

http://www.tagteach.ch/ (German)

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAG_teach (Swedish)