This first exercise will continue throughout the entire course, and will help you to use the TAGteach approach for your own learning.

First, you’ll need to make yourself a tagulator. Watch the video below to learn how!

Now that you have made your own tagulator, you will need to set a course-related goal (or tag point) for yourself.

An example of a goal could be: Complete 2 headings.

Once you have completed your goal, tag and pull a bead down on your tagulator. Once you have pulled all of the beads from one side to the other, give yourself a reward. The reward must be something that you enjoy! For example, a cookie, a walk in the woods, a nap, or some TV time could all be rewards. You can change your reward from day to day if you’d like, but should you choose it before you begin working towards your goal for each day.

So the example above (Complete 2 headings) could look like this:

• Sit down at the computer to begin the course

• Complete Course Content heading

• Complete Learning Objectives heading

• Tag! Pull a bead

• Complete Course Exercises heading

• Complete Course Journal heading

• Tag! Pull a bead

Once you have done this 10 times (or however many beads you have put on your tagulator) reward yourself with whatever you have chosen.

Another tag point you could use for yourself might be to complete a quiz question correctly. You could pull a bead each time you get a quiz question correct.

If you find that your goal is too difficult, go back and re-evaluate it to make it more manageable. We have tried to subdivide the course into many small manageable sections so that you can work for short periods. There are lots of pop quizzes throughout the course. These are optional and the scores are not tracked. These are just for fun!

You may have noticed that we have used the term “reward” instead of “reinforce” here. If gaining the reward increased the likelihood of your completing another section of the course, then the reward was also a reinforcer. If you just liked it, but it didn’t influence your future behavior, then it was just a reward and not a reinforcer. We can’t know which is it for you, so we used the term “reward”, even though in some cases it could be both a reward and a reinforcer.