First Person: Sticker politics

On Lucía van Ryzin’s first day as a student teacher, she was given a sheet of stickers and told to give a sticker to each student who was seated, silent, and had a notebook out. As she walked around the room, she noticed that some students were more focused on getting the sticker than on thinking about their assignment. She uses the experience to weigh the value of extrinsic motivators like stickers for motivating student learning.