I am going to use Achievements for the first time next term. Will students be motivated to get good achievements even if they have no affect on grade? If I assign course points how do I do so without over-weighting achievements?
I've been having problems with student procrastination on starting assignments. So maybe certain achievements could count for grading purposes.
Wondering what others are doing in this area. For example, if I typically use WW as 15% of course grade, what would be a reasonable weight for achievement points (either as part of WW score or course itself)?
I use Achievements, with no direct effect on course grade. I use them with items though, and some items can effect grade.
About half of my students are indifferent to Achievements, and half think they are neat and fun. Some are definitely motivated to get to the later items which can have a noticeable effect on grade. One of the later items can give 100% on an entire assignment retroactively, and another can give double value to all of the problems in a set.
If I recall, the default values for the various badges total around 400pts, and the level 10 threshold is something like 1300. So say a student gets 200 pts from badges. Then they need 1100 from questions. Divide 1100 by the total number of questions in your course, and you can use that as the "points per problem" in the Course Configuration. I believe you can use non-integer values for this. Then you can set it up so that the few students who do all their homework all term long are reaching level 10 by the end of the course. (You should look up the numbers though - I don't think I have them exactly right.)
You can also edit the achievements so that the level thresholds are what works better for you.
One achievement is the early bird, and you could make use of that to detect early completion. You could also use the Reduced Credit Period in a way to encourage earlier action.
About half of my students are indifferent to Achievements, and half think they are neat and fun. Some are definitely motivated to get to the later items which can have a noticeable effect on grade. One of the later items can give 100% on an entire assignment retroactively, and another can give double value to all of the problems in a set.
If I recall, the default values for the various badges total around 400pts, and the level 10 threshold is something like 1300. So say a student gets 200 pts from badges. Then they need 1100 from questions. Divide 1100 by the total number of questions in your course, and you can use that as the "points per problem" in the Course Configuration. I believe you can use non-integer values for this. Then you can set it up so that the few students who do all their homework all term long are reaching level 10 by the end of the course. (You should look up the numbers though - I don't think I have them exactly right.)
You can also edit the achievements so that the level thresholds are what works better for you.
One achievement is the early bird, and you could make use of that to detect early completion. You could also use the Reduced Credit Period in a way to encourage earlier action.
Thanks for some great info. I like the part about students getting double points etc for assignments if they do certain things. I will look into that and then indirectly it could affect their grade since WW counts as part of their grade.