Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Economics of Grades and eLearning
I find it interesting how motivated I and it seems my fellow eLearners are motivated by the economics of the course - in this case grades. Those items that we receive points on (you accumulate points for completing tasks in the course, which go into your grades) seem to get the focus and action. For example, a discussion forum has been established that is for students only and the instructor has indicated she will not monitor, so there has only been one post. This is opposed to the diigo discussion board that the instructor participated in regularly, where everyone posts. I realize that even minimal incentive helps focus and this is a particularly useful concept/tool for eLearning, where there are lots of individual tasks to be worked on.
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I'm not sure grades are motivating the students. I hope not, anyway. Maybe I'll do an anonymous survey to see what's really motivating people. If it's the points, I'm not doing a very good job :) However, it's hard to break a lifetime habit of performing for points. Some instructors are careful to balance the participation points so students can't get a decent grade without participating. I didn't examine the point structure that far. I'll have to check it out! :)
ReplyDeleteI think people are probably posting more in Diigo, because Vista is such a pain in the rear to get in to and post. I think a few students got off to an early start there, and it seemed like a good place to hang out. :) I also hope people are posting there, instead of Vista, because they'll get to keep their work when they are done. I think it's a better investment. I'm sure some of the motivation is also peer pressure.
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