Tuesday, March 03, 2009

Rewards for Students

Here's an article from today about attempts to deal with the ambition gap.

(AND, if you comment on this article, you get a point. Should you?)

12 comments:

Barry W. said...

the ambition gap is a hard one to try and teach people.. but we need to.. people cant get by on looks anymore..

steve said...

I am not posting this for the point... Hmmm, except I logged on today for the purpose of getting points... Well I feel like I am learning better by staying involved in the class through the blog, so maybe this point thing is going to work out pretty good. Though this apparently means I can be bought.... For a point no less.


I feel cheap.
-Matthew

Kirsten said...

The ambition gap is definetly the hardest to close. I think it goes back to family structure and culture changes.But then again how do you teach ambition?

SamWofford said...

I don't feel cheap, I want a good grade so I'm being ambitious and going after extra credit and not settling for a certain grade when i can have a better one....lol

Kirsten said...

Yay Samantha! Way to get one step closer to closing the ambition gap! Maybe if Peters would go off that grading scale where even a C is an A we would all have abundant amounts of ambition =]

Anonymous said...

Ambition Smishion (or something like that)Morals...Character....Whatever. Just give me the money! Or points in this case:0

scott said...

barry I disagre I find it easy to get by on looks alone. if I did anything more than that I would be super natural.

Alycia said...

In my Psych class we're talking about positive and negative reiforcement. Ties in quite well. In this case its positive reinforcement. But hell, if it works and if it gives students motivation, then by all means do it. If anyone expects kids to suddenly "enjoy learning" or whatever, well, sorry to say it, but dont hold your breath. Dont get me wrong, there are many interesting things you can learn in a day, but gettin that icing on the cake never hurts = ]

JCampos said...

I think that the ambition gap really can be closed only with the help of parent enforcing tough love on their kids. Parents who dont will have kids really good at Halo instead of really good at math!

JLYNN said...

Well I AM posting for the points. Am I such a horrible person that I'm taking adventage of such a great opportunity that Mr. Peters gives us to improve our grades? nah I don't think so.

LindsyM. said...

That was a great article. Thank you Mr. Peters for posting that. It helped me with my paper!

LindsyM. said...

Don't feel cheap Matt. It's the end of the semester, everyone is doing anything that the possibly can to raise their grade...