Instructional Design that Promotes Generalization

Multiple exemplar training: A teaching style, for the benefit of generalization, uses a variety of stimulus and response outcomes.  For example, teaching a child to say, “hello” and / or wave to the stimulus of both to someone waving hello and saying, “howdy.”

General Case Analysis: Is a systematic way of teaching examples that represent a full range of both stimulus and responses.  For example, teaching a student to purchase milk at the grocery store with a credit card and to buy a magazine with cash at a kiosk.

Teaching Non-examples: It is important to teach a student examples of non-correct behavior.  For example, making a sandwich is ok with fresh bread, but if the bread is old, then don’t do it.  The “don’t do it” stimulus (moldy bread for a sandwhich) is a S>delta.

Programming Common Stimuli:  This is using the generalized and natural setting in the teaching environment.  For example, when teaching to count money, don’t just do it with a picture of money, use real dollar bills.

Teach Loosely: Varying the environment within the teaching setting to encourage generalization.    This includes varying the time of day, temperature, teacher, choice of words, etc.  Be as unpredictable and random as possible to encourage the learning to happen across settings.

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