In the past, I believed most educators understood the inherent differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and valued the latter over the former. However, this does not seem to be the case. Pay-for-grades, gold stars, student-of-the-month programs and attendance rewards are all too prevalent extrinsic motivators used to push students to do a better job. I’ve found an overwhelming amount of evidence that these schemes do not work in the long…

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