Episode 175: Dr. Claire St Peter Part 1: Mastery-Based Learning and Super Resurgence

This week we continue to explore the connection between teaching programs that have been developed for classrooms and the work we do with our horses. We are joined by Dr. Claire St Peter. Claire received her PhD in Psychology with an emphasis in Behavior Analysis from the University of Florida in 2006. She is currently a Professor of Psychology, the Director of Graduate Training, and the Coordinator of the Behavior Analysis program area at West Virginia University.

She serves as the current Editor-in-Chief for the journal Education and Treatment of Children. Her research focuses on improving outcomes for children who struggle in school,

identifying generative effects of extinction, determining how well reinforcement-based teaching procedures work in application by novice implementers, and teaching others to use behavioral approaches.

That’s the academic bio. Claire is also a horse person. In 2021 she saw my Clicker Expo presentations and decided to take a deeper look at my work. She attended my virtual clinics and Science Camp. One of the things Claire enjoys are collaborations that let her blend her research interests with her passion for horses.

I enjoy collaborations as well, so I was delighted when Claire started attending my virtual clinics. That’s given us many opportunities to have some fascinating conversations. And now it’s clearly time to share some of those conversations in this podcast. In this episode we begin with mastery based learning - what is it and why is it relevant to our horses? Claire ends by introducing us to super resurgence. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what that means and what it has to do with horses.