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| Teaching With PORTL |
| Friday, May 22, 2020 |
| 8:00 AM–3:00 PM |
| To Be Determined |
| Area: TBA; Domain: Service Delivery |
| CE Instructor: Jesus Rosales-Ruiz, Ph.D. |
| JESUS ROSALES-RUIZ (University of North Texas), MARY ELIZABETH HUNTER (Behavior Explorer), CRYSTAL FERNANDEZ (University of North Texas) |
| Description: PORTL, the Portable Operant Research and Teaching Lab, offers a convenient and fun way to practice and experience the principles of behavior. This tabletop game is essentially a portable Skinner box for humans. It is ideal as a companion for college instruction and for staff training. Through PORTL exercises, students can learn about reinforcement, extinction, discrimination, stimulus control, shaping, chaining, and other behavioral phenomena. Students also learn how to design reinforcement systems, write teaching plans, collect data, and assess the learner’s progress during teaching. One advantage of PORTL is that students get to experience what it is like to be both the teacher and the learner. In this workshop, you will learn the fundamentals of PORTL, the parallels between PORTL and the Skinner box, and the basics of using PORTL in the classroom or as a teaching tool for therapists. You will also get to play several PORTL exercises as both the teacher and learner, which will further illustrate the power of PORTL as a teaching tool. |
| Learning Objectives: (1) Describe the basic components of the game PORTL and the relationship between PORTL and the Skinner box. (2) Describe how to use PORTL to teach basic behavioral principles to students or practitioners. (3) Teach simple and complex behaviors using PORTL. |
| Activities: This workshop will consist of lectures and hands-on activities. Lectures and videos will be used to describe the basics of PORTL and teach participants how to use PORTL to teach others about basic behavioral principles. Participants will have a chance to experience PORTL through a series of hands-on exercises. During the exercises, participants will play the roles of both teacher and student. Group discussions will be used to summarize and reflect on the experience gained by playing the exercises and to further discuss how to use PORTL as a teaching tool. |
| Audience: This workshop is designed for anyone who is interested in teaching others about basic behavioral principles and who is interested in teaching others about how to design and implement teaching programs. University professors will find the material useful for their undergraduate and graduate behavior classes. BCBAs and licensed psychologists will find the material useful for training practitioners and therapists. |
| Content Area: Practice |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |
| Keyword(s): basic principles, laboratory experience, shaping skills, staff training |