This is a heady rant about motivating your user. (7 min).
While some of the big words might be off putting, the simple game examples should be inviting. ?
It serves as advice on making someone feel glad they performed a task you setup for them. The speaker is talking about video games, and behavioral engineering, but I think it relates to motivating online students.
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tl;dr?
the core takeaway is: points ain't rewards.
Just because you gave someone points, doesn't mean they received them as a reward. Points only work as rewards when they are a "token" of whatever currency the player values. I think this is fascinating to keep in mind when trying to motivate students. (you might think of grades and degrees as tokens in different currencies)
+ I'm curious to learn how much the field of "instructional design" leverages behavioral engineering.