Psychology

 Service learning has been found useful in enhancing the learning of concepts by students in class in recent times. Moreover, service learning has been found instrumental in producing attractive results in students like enhanced self esteem as well as an increased desire to know social causes. The psychology of learning is beneficial to all in the learning process as seen with trainers of dogs in the animal shelter. Generally, this article highlights the importance of teaching and learning operant principles of a member of faculty, the student and also the member of staff.

Significance of Service Learning
Service learning helps students to actively participate in class as well as model the learnt concepts and techniques. This also includes the ability to show the applicability of what is being taught in the world we live in. Moreover, students can perform significant social-work as a lot of satisfaction is realized through experiences of education in service learning. However, the administration of a service-learning component in a large class could be somehow hard.  Having established the benefits found herein, the article presents a method where instructors in psychology can permit their students to learn as well as practice very crucial psychological principles in the process of doing socially-beneficial work through using students in developed courses as operant trainers in animal shelters.

Perspectives
The perspectives of the value of teaching and learning operant principles in animal shelters have been shared by a faculty member (TM) in coordination, a student (RC) who has actively taken part in a shelter learning experience an administrator at a Humane Society Branch (DF) where the shelter learning experience is being provided. All this have been integrated together to establish the importance of using a service learning experience in class.

Important Information
Every year in the United States, many dogs have been abandoned at animal shelters. Despite, efforts of organizations like the Humane Society to offer shelter to the animals, many animals remain unsheltered because of their relatively big number. Consequently, most of them get killed to provide room for pets which are incoming. The reason for abandonment is that the animals develop some behaviors that the owners cannot cope with. All the same, after being adopted in these shelters, the problems may become more pronounced or even develop other behaviors owing to the conditions of crowd and noise in the shelter. The need to correct these behaviors prompts the implementation of the shelter training program.

Faculty Perspectives
During the Fall 2000 academic semester, psychology of learning students was used as dog trainers in animal shelters. This led to offering opportunities for students to develop better knowledge of operant principles as well as making unwanted shelter dogs adoptable in an easy manner. This was a session for the trainer to model the things learnt in class. These are ideal courses in getting trainers for dogs because the learning course specifically focuses on the use of operant condition steps in increasing the likelihood of desirable behaviors and decreasing the likelihood of the undesirable ones. Moreover, they are very beneficial to students who are enrolled in the courses. However, some students may not find it easy in learning these topics.

Examples of Operant Procedures
The operant procedures are as discussed below. Shaping is one of the operant procedures which aim at producing the desired character in an animal. Reinforcement on the other hand is the increment of a future likelihood of a desired response through an environmental consequence. Another one is punishment which could involve such things like withholding attention from a dog with undesirable character.    

Student and Shelter Staff Perspectives
Many students have been found taking courses in psychology because the areas of study are interesting. However, a lot of challenge has been when it comes to research work. On the other hand, the shelter staff is of the opinion that, the presence of student is very crucial to dogs even without performing the operant conditioning task.  However, the operant skills of training brought by students as perceived by the staff seem to be an authentic bonus and the training received by dogs while with the students produce satisfactory results.

Conclusion
From all that has been found of benefit through service learning, many authors have been seen to promote the importance of such approach in the learning of the student. Service learning has is an important tool used to relate the kind of material learnt in class to the practical world.  Operant conditioning is a method whereby humans as well as animals get to learn to behave in a manner to get rewards as well as evade punishment.  It refers to a pattern in experimental psychology through which such action and learning are learnt. As seen here, the behavior of individuals is directed through the consequences.

For instance, while a dog can beg for a bone, the politician will be found reading the polls to guide him in his campaign. The operant conditioning process is goal-oriented behavior performance. The operant procedures are therefore very crucial in the production of such desired behavior in both animals and humans. The information contained in this article generally supports the importance of employing service learning with students as it improves their understanding levels.