Identification: agree or disagree?

let’s imagine a simple quiz with a pic of a pyrus tree.

  1. what kind of tree is this?
    a. orange
    b. elm
    c. ficus
    d. pyrus
    e. other

someone answers “c”. and for 6 years nobody grades their quiz. for 6 years. like, who’s the teacher? where did they go? did they get fired? are they taking a sabbatical? where are all the other teachers? how tall is the stack of ungraded quizzes?

i come along and see the quiz. i’m not a teacher. i’m a researcher. my area of research is ficus, so i know for a fact that the answer definitely isn’t c. is this information useful? well, it’s more useful than 6 years of absolutely no feedback or engagement of any sort. a little help is better than absolutely no help. a little hint is better than absolutely no hint. a little engagement is better than absolutely no engagement. a little feedback is better than absolutely no feedback.

i lied when i said that i’m not a teacher. here’s today’s lesson, always make it easier, rather than harder, for people to share any of their knowledge.

as someone pointed out in my thread on optimal recruitment, nobody here is getting paid. if we’re all teachers, then we are all unpaid teachers. we’re all volunteers. everyone here is intrinsically motivated to share their knowledge with others. a disagree button wouldn’t change this.

the issue is, if there are too many completely ungraded quizzes, then maybe intrinsic motivation isn’t cutting it. maybe there’s a reason why real teachers have to be paid to grade quizzes all day. i’m not saying that we should be paid, but it’s entirely possible that inat is greatly underestimating the usefulness of extrinsic motivation.

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