Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Gold Stars and Grades

What if deadlines, imposed goals, surveillance and evaluations were found to all undermine intrinsic motivation?

What if grades, gold stars, and other rewards for performance sabotage a student's desire to engage in learning for its own sake?

Are you prepared to engage with these questions or are they too threatening?

If you are willing to see cognitive dissonance as an opportunity to play with, rather than a crisis to be avoided, I suggest you try playing the game You say you want this, so then why are you doing that? by taking a look at these three books:

Why We Do What We Do by Edward Deci

Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn

Drive by Dan Pink

2 comments:

  1. Hi,

    You say you want this, so then why are you doing that

    The truth is they = everyone wants good grades to you can further your education in order to get a good job. In communities or families where a culture of learning for its own sake exist , life long learners will abound despite the educational system which is deiven by grades

    ReplyDelete
  2. So far the books look interesting, I really want to buy some of them :)

    ReplyDelete