Giving Compass' Take:

• This NPR podcast profiles orthopedic surgeon Martin Levy, who employs clicker training methods (usually used on dogs) to help new medical residents hone their techniques.

• A clicker removes emotion and judgment from the learning process — but does it provide results? How might the general concept be applied to traditional education spaces?

• Here's how blended learning tools help engage students.

Frisbee coach Martin Levy is a big fan of the clicker. He uses it to train his border collies to perform complex jumps and twirls on the Frisbee field. In 2012, after successfully using a clicker to teach his other Frisbee students — the human ones — he decided to up the stakes, and test it out at his day job: as an orthopedic surgeon.

At the Bronx Montefiore Medical Center in New York, Dr. Martin Levy uses clicker training — a technique drawn from the world of animal training, modified for humans — to help new surgeons quickly learn their craft. It's one of the many tricks he uses to teach his inexperienced medical residents how to tie knots, drill holes and twist screws into broken bones and ligaments, among other techniques. Dr. Levy breaks the skills down into tiny, incremental steps. Each step, performed correctly, is marked with his clicker.

Listen to the full podcast about the power of judgment free learning at npr.org.