Tag: Rewards

May 20

Craving Acknowledgement [Revisited]

I published this post a little over a year ago. I wanted to re-publish it because of the lessons learned when I wrote it, especially the posts I linked to. It all started in 2011 when I wrote this. Last year [the 2012-13 school year] our middle school staff agreed to stop choosing Student’s of …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/05/20/craving-acknowledgement-revisited/

Nov 14

PBIS & Acknowledging Students

I had a most enlightening conversation with my advisory group about rewarding, I mean acknowledging, students. Our school is now a PBIS school and part of our efforts to reward positive behavior includes teachers giving slips of paper to students when we catch them engaging in positive behaviors. The slips of paper have the traits …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/11/14/pbis-acknowledging-students/

Oct 22

PBIS and Rewards

After wondering if I was being hypocritical for denouncing the use of rewards systems to encourage positive behaviors from kids yet using experience points and badges in my gamified classroom I had the following Twitter conversation helping me think through PBIS and the use of rewards. This issue, which researchers like Alfie Kohn, make seem …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/10/22/pbis-and-rewards/

Oct 20

Am I a Hypocrite?

Sometimes I feel like hypocrite when I denounce extrinsic rewards. I’ve been vocal at my school about my discomfort rewarding students for things they should be doing. Things that many of them do anyways. We even abolished our monthly awards ceremonies and student of the month award ceremonies last year. But now we have become …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/10/20/am-i-a-hypocrite/

Apr 22

Craving Acknowledgement

Last year our middle school staff agreed to stop choosing Student’s of the Month and to stop giving out monthly awards for behaviors in which we want our students to engage. My advisory students conducted a survey and we found out that a majority of students reported feeling left out and not appreciated by our …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/04/22/craving-acknowledgement/

Jul 09

8th Grade Year Plan

After planning possible 6th grade activities, I put them into the 3D GameLab (3DGL) interface ready for kids to Beta test in the fall. So far I have 73 quests in several different chains with room for some student choice. The benefit of having no grades is that kids can really pick and choose what …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/09/8th-grade-year-plan/

Jul 06

Rewards and Gaming #3dgamelab

The idea of badges and achievements in gaming is a problem for teachers who have abolished extrinsic motivators in their classrooms. In 3DGL there is a Badges section, an Achievements section and an Awards section. I’m really conflicted by the awards section because it’s more like rewards than badges and achievements in my eyes. I …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/06/rewards-and-gaming/

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/03/characteristics-of-gbl/

Jun 18

When is Extrinsic Motivation Okay?

I’ve been looking into gamification and how it can help motivate students to have fun and learn Science. I would love to make certain lessons, projects, or activities look like a game to motivate students to learn boring things like vocabulary. I’d like to do that without points, badges or too many rewards. I’ve abolished …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/06/18/when-is-extrinsic-motivation-okay/

Feb 26

Not Against Competition

I’ve written some posts about awards not being very useful when used as reward and punishment. I’ve written some posts about grades not being very useful when used as reward and punishment. I try to create an environment in my classroom where kids aren’t competing for points or an A but are instead learning and …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/02/26/not-against-competition/

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