Bait and Switch: Using Extra Credit to Induce Students' Intrinsic Motivation

Effective student study groups are key to academic success, especially in STEM disciplines. But how do students learn to find, form, and (most importantly) effectively give and take to study groups? In this presentation, we'll show why and how a flexible, semester-long, extra-credit activity helps develop and leverage students’ intrinsic motivation to practice and prepare for high-stakes midterm and final exams faculty plan to give anyway. Key steps include introducing students to metacognition (or thinking about thinking) based on Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning; providing a simple, but effective, online process for students to contribute, collect, display and “vote” on the best student-developed practice questions AND answers; and scaling reflection on their exam preparation vs. performance (especially after a midterm) that can leverage intrinsic motivation to learn how to learn. This process was implemented over multiple terms in a large (300+) STEM course with compelling quantitative and qualitative results.