Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Education : Don't Incentivise Success -- Incentivise Inputs and Discipline

Many of the popular incentivization programs for students look for positive grades.  However, grades are an outcome, and outcome measurement is too late.  Think of incentives on grades as dividing the output of a production line into two buckets: the outputs that match standards and those that deviate.  Schools measure these because they traditional, easy, and accessible.  Every student receives grades for every course, thus the data is accessible, and schools do not have to build anything new.

Schools should stop measuring student outcomes and start measuring student inputs.  Institutions should institute thin slicing student educational participation.  When we measure student inputs, we are measuring the discipline of students to take charge of self-education.

What inputs should schools measure?
  • Quality Attendance - yes / no daily
    • Participation
  • Student Resource Usage
    • Early and Often
      • Usage 1 week before assignments
      • Usage 2 weeks before tests
    • Book Purchases
    • Library usage
  • Educational Ownership
    • Active Calendar of Class Events
The above inputs do not predict success ;  I use the term "Actions Indicative of Success."  Students can fail when doing any of the above.  However, I have friends who failed college courses while pursuing the actions above, and they are much more successful than friends I know who flew through college.