Tool helps students, tasks click

All kinds of teachers take a tip from dogs that learn new tricks

By Anna Johns

The Portland Tribune, Mar 28, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

At Stoneworks rock climbing gym in Beaverton, the music is blaring as climbers scale walls and swing like monkeys from handholds. Above the commotion, a loud clicking sound is echoing through the room.

The sound is coming from the hand of Juan Rodriguez, an instructor who is using a new tool to teach novice climbers. For every move that his student, Garrett Baldwin, performs correctly, Rodriguez clicks the palm-size instrument in his hand, called a tagger.

“When you hear it, it’s like ‘Cool,’ ” Baldwin says. “The positive reinforcement keeps you going.”

Rodriguez is using a little-known instructional method called TAGteach, which dog owners may recognize as clicker training. TAG stands for teaching with acoustical guidance. The theory behind TAG and clicker training methods is similar: Break a behavior down into simple steps, and reward the student for right moves with a click (and a treat, if your student is a dog).

“It’s great for isolating problems,” Rodriguez says.

Using a clicking noise in teaching is more effective than verbal reinforcement, according to Keri Gorman, a nationally certified TAGteach instructor. Gorman teaches TAG seminars in the Northwest and will start a five-week-long TAG class through Portland Community College next month.

“The clicking sound works faster in the brain and creates a muscle memory,” she says.

It also sounds the same every time, whereas people use a different inflection whenever they say “Thank you” or “Good job.” The message won’t get mixed: A click means the student did something right. Silence means “Try again.”

Baldwin has discovered the difference firsthand at the climbing gym.

“Hearing the click doesn’t take your mind out of the game,” he says, which is important when he’s thinking about the next handhold to grab.

As with clicker training for animals, TAGteach is based on positive reinforcement. When a teacher breaks down a movement or behavior into simple steps, it sets the student up for success.

It’s a method that Mary Lee Nitschke, a psychology professor at Linfield College, wishes would catch on with more instructors.

“It’s particularly powerful because this is promoting the development and progress of a behavior, rather than some of the methods that have been used in the past that have been based on consequences,” Nitschke says.

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