Communicating in Scientific Ways with Badge and Prize Rewards
Abstract: Students of all ages enjoy playing games and earning rewards. Electronic badges and prizes both offer exciting extrinsic motivation for student to study and learn science processes. This paper explores how educators can motivate students to learn how to think and communicate like a scientist using strategy 8 of the Student Thinking Lens (STL) by the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS).Interesting, fun, and relevant classroom questioning activities can turn bore distracted students into engaged participants excited to learn. One bonus of the STL and embedded virtual instruction is all learners seem to benefit. Motivating more students of all ages to enjoy learning science, and think and communicate like a scientist will help them be scientifically literate, which is a major Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS). The goal is to motivate more students to experience science flow--the aha, enjoy science, earn rewards, and support science literacy.
Presider: Elaine Reeder, Virginia Commonwealth University