Mobile Learning: A Handbook for Developers, Educators, and Learners (Wiley and SAS Business Series)

by Scott McQuiggan

implemented rewards can be viable instructional aids.46 Typically, there are quantitative and qualitative differences in the quality of learning between a student who is intrinsically motivated and one who is extrinsically motivated; ultimately, we want students to learn because they want and love to learn, not because they are forced to or incentivized by some external reward system. Unfortunately, reality is far from a world of intrinsically motivated students across all domains making the use of rewards a strategic, yet complicated, tool. Research-based best practices suggest tangible rewards should only be utilized when absolutely necessary and should be reduced over time.47 Moreover, students should receive rewards for productive behavior as opposed to a final product, and students should be made explicitly aware why they are receiving the reward.48 Therefore, to effectively implement a reward system, classroom teachers must pay close attention to the needs and actions of each student—a problem solved by the use of mobile technologies. The personalization of a mobile experience can effectively provide extrinsic motivation for productive behavior, as opposed to a final product. As a result, students are encouraged to try hard, transact with the material, generate connections with prior knowledge, and implement effective strategies—the characteristics of an intrinsically motived student—and high performance more likely becomes a by-product of these behaviors. When utili...