Retired Service Dog Helps AP Psychology Students

AP Psychology is already a tough subject and learning the difference between classical and operant conditioning can be difficult to remember. To help students better understand the concepts, Upper School Math Teacher Cindy Riggin brought her late husband’s retired service dog, Sparrow. To help her students learn the differences and be able to visually see them.

Over a span of a few weeks, Sparrow made trips to FWCD to help the students learn about classical and operant conditioning as they used shaping techniques to reteach skills that she had lost. 

Classical conditioning is when you associate an outcome with an object, so for Sparrow, it was putting on her jacket. She knows when the jacket goes on, it’s time to work. Operant conditioning is punishment or rewards. For this, the students would reteach Sparrow commands she used to do all the time, like opening a door or going under the table when the family was eating. 

Riggin also gave the students an opportunity to sign up for one-on-one time with Sparrow outside of class so they could apply the techniques learned in class to teach Sparrow a new skill.

“I had a couple of students that taught her to ring the bell," said Riggin. "So I explained to her [the student] you’re shaping Sparrow, so what you’re going to do is if she even accidentally rings the bell, give her a treat and she will start to associate the bell with a treat. She’s very food motivated.”

Another student had a button that says “ball,” and they worked on her getting her ball when the button was hit. They got to apply what they learned in class first hand.

In just her second year teaching AP Psychology, Riggin would love to continue to bring Sparrow to campus because it helped her students really learn and apply the various concepts they studied in the learning unit in AP Psychology.

“So many of them said, ‘Oh this makes so much sense now,' said Riggin. "It’s not just theory, seeing shaping in action along with rewards, primary reinforcers and secondary reinforcers really brought the learning unit to life. We’re so visual now too, so actually seeing it in action made more sense. After working with Sparrow, students are better able to describe the learning process. They can separate the two because a lot of times students do get confused with classical and operant conditioning.”