PORTL Seminars
Discover how to take your training skills to the next level
During the summer of 2017 and 2018, ASAT hosted Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz and Mary Hunter for several PORTL workshops.
Please stay tuned for dates for our 2019 PORTL workshops!
About each workshop: These workshops consist of two intensive days of lectures and hands-on exercises using PORTL.
PORTL allows you to practice you shaping skills with another human as the learner. You also get to play the role of the learner, which gives you more insight into how people and animals learn. During each seminar, you’ll learn about behavior principles and techniques that will help you create optimal learning situations when working with both animals and people.
Each seminar is limited to 30 attendees to allow ample time for discussion and questions and so that participants can receive individual coaching during the shaping exercises.
Dr. Rosales-Ruiz and Mary Hunter have given PORTL workshops to audiences of both professional animal trainers and behavior analysts throughout the United States and in Europe. Attendees find PORTL to be both educational and enlightening and are eager to continuing using it after the seminar as a tool to gain insight into learning and behavior. Here are some comments from previous workshop and seminar attendees:
“I LOVED the PORTL workshop. So many useful lessons to help us think carefully about our training and gain empathy for our learners!”
“I am going to have all my trainers practice this game with each other.”
“PORTL was a huge ‘ah ha!’ moment for me as I experienced being the learner. It really highlighted some critical concepts that the teacher must consider, especially in lesson planning.”
“PORTL really helps you to understand things from your dog’s viewpoint.”
“Dog trainers tend to forget that our primary job is to teach the dog owners how to train their dogs, not for us to train their dogs. PORTL helps us understand how to teach owners step-by-step.”
“PORTL – wow! I learned so much from one simple exercise. I finally understand resurgence from seeing it happen.”