Theresa McKeon started TAGTeach in 2003 as a way of teaching her gymnasts to gain a competitive edge.
TAGTeach methodology slices behavior and focuses on attainable wins and success, allowing us to ignore failure (for the most part).
In TAGTeach, often success alone motivates the learner but additional R+ can also be given.
Training is the same, and works equally well, for all species, whether training an earthworm or a Harvard graduate.
Ken Ramirez
Pairing a previously neutral stimulus with something the learner already has an emotional response to
Behavior leads to a consequence.
Behavior leads to a consequence.
Tag Points are:
TAGTeach slices tasks and behavior into small, achievable goals and focuses on success.
TAGTeach is used all over the learning spectrum: business, shipping, classrooms, sports coaching, physical therapy, and medical training are just a few.
Obviously, we're not "clicking" our teammates and we're not "teaching". But we can create our own "focus funnel" to attain success.
Every task sets the team member up to succeed when:
This way everyone is working on the most important thing
and most likely to succeed.
Each task (or issue or request, etc.) should:
Instead of someone "clicking" us, we can tag ourselves to indicate successful execution and notify our team leader when tags have been attained. "Tags" could be:
TAGTeach focuses solely on reinforcing success. This happens in a few ways:
Adult human learners are often alone reinforced through receiving the feedback of the tag and attaining success. No external, tangible reinforcement may be needed.
Can reinforce each tag or combine "tags" to earn greater reinforcement:
Individual or Team Goals? Both?
Setting team goals can encourage comraderie, increased communication, and learning partnerships.
Start with an easily attainable goal to ensure the learner has early success, and gradually increase the goal as success is attained.
TAGTeach focuses on successes because the learner already knows when she failed by the absense of a "tag". This keeps everyone in a "win" frame of mind, fosters learning and curiosity, and makes attaining goals fun.
Of course not!
By focusing on wins (attaining tag points), team leaders have object benchmarks to measure performance.
Because the groundwork has been laid through clear communication and slicing behavior (tasks/projects) into distinctly attainable goals, the team leader can objectively quantify success.
Because there is one way to succeed - achieve the tag point - the leader knows if the learner understands and is performing the skill accurately.
TAGTeach methodology takes what was once subjective measures and objectifies goals.
It is incumbent on the team leaders to ensure the team knows how to win, breaking down projects or tasks into reasonable chunks, setting distinct tag points, and taking ownerships of failures.
If a team member fails, the leader must first check if the team member was set up to succeed and adjust where needed.
But, if the team member isn't up to scratch, cannot attain reasonable goals, does not self-assess or self-correct, and does not learn, then the team leader has the benchmarks to show this objectively and the team member is cut from the team.