Behavior Analysis
Documentation of lectures, exams, tools, and activities I utilize during behavior analysis
Syllabus
The syllabus I utilize for my Behavior Analysis course includes details on the required text, grade breakdown, assignment expectations, and a tentative course schedule. The course schedule includes planned lectures/activities for each class as well as homework assignments due for that class period. I always intend to use the schedule to the best of my ability, but unforeseen situations often require a schedule change.
Please click the links below to view the documents!
Interactive Lectures
Classical Conditioning is taught over the span of two chapters: Foundations and Mechanisms. Many students begin this chapter with confidence as they have learned about Pavlovian Conditioning in their introduction course. As behavior analysis is solely focused on these learning topics, we go into much more depth than they may realize. This chapter sets the tone for the course, and I encourage students to engage with the material by coming to the board and noting what the US, CS, UR, and CR are for different examples, as well as drawing the timing of the different possible procedures.
Please note: these examples were adapted from PowerPoint to Google Slides for access on this website. For a PowerPoint download please click here.
Schedules of Reinforcement is a topic discussed in regard to Operant Conditioning that is traditionally tricky for students to grasp, as there are 4 different styles that have overlapping concepts. In this chapter, we focus on the main Schedules and work through examples as a class.
For a PowerPoint download of Schedules of Reinforcement, please click here.
Extinction of Conditioned Behaviors is a chapter that has a lot of ties to the entire course. This is one of the last chapters we cover, but in nearly every other chapter, we discuss extinction in the context of the particular learning style. This chapter rounds out that knowledge and provides a real-world context of how extinction can be used in people. This is particularly relevant as many students are interested in Clinical Psychology, and it provides a strong foundation for one crucial type of therapy.
I encourage you to view the PowerPoint as well, as a variety of examples are videos and do not translate to Google Slides. For a PowerPoint download of Extinction of Conditioned Behaviors, please click here.
Classical Conditioning in Media
During our Mechanisms in Classical Conditioning chapter, we learn about what factors contribute to effective conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. We also focus on presenting research on different learning models that characterize the nature of the conditioned response, and how the UCS and CS become associated. Within this chapter, students complete a homework assignment where they are asked to find examples of classical conditioning in media and create a presentation explaining the details of why it is classical conditioning.
For a download of the full assignment details, please click here.
Conditioning in Practice
To wrap up our course, I assign a two-step assignment that asks students to be the researcher and create and run a conditioning study. During the course, we discuss both Classical Conditioning and Instrumental/Operant Conditioning at great length. The students are first tasked with selecting one of these conditioning styles and proposing a study. They submitted detailed proposals, received feedback, and met with students who wanted to discuss their idea further. Following this, they put their plans into action! They ran their study as proposed, collecting both observational and quantitative data. Then, they write up their study and findings in an APA-style journal article.
Students are also provided with an extra credit opportunity to submit a conference-style poster of their results. This allowed students to be creative and engage with their work in more ways than they may not have had experience with in the past.
Permission has been obtained by all students whose work is presented here.
For a download of the full assignment details, please click here.
Example Review Game
A critical component of my class is the review games we play in class before each exam. Typically, these games are built around team collaboration and try to provide concrete examples of the content and style of questions the students will be asked on the exam. In this example, we played trivia where there were teams of 5-6 people, and they had an answer sheet to put their responses. After submitting their answers for each round, we went over each question as a class. This not only provided them with a fun opportunity to think about their placement in the game, but importantly, it was a time to ask clarifying questions and engage with the class about the material. All of the review games were made available to them on the course Canvas page for their continued use as a study tool.
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