Tag Archives: Erin McGuire

Chocolate and Crickets: Motivating Students through Food

They say that the way to a person’s heart is through the stomach—I’d say that it’s also the way to the mind. Some time ago, I decided that I could motivate my students with food and competition. You may have read the post where I discussed using virtual badges and stickers in class to go along with optional activities designed to get students engaged with course materials. Using food in my classes goes back even further. read more…

  • dateSeptember 19, 2016
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  • posted byErin McGuire
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Talking Timbits and Double Doubles: First Day Conversations in Anthropology 100

September looms and it’s time to start planning for that important first class with with my new batch of students. That means it’s time to add Timbits and coffee to my to-do list. Not because I plan to eat them (palm oil!), but I need them for class. It started like this… read more…

  • dateAugust 22, 2016
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  • posted byErin McGuire
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Making Knowledge Stick: Virtual Badges and Real Life Stickers

“Better than Digital Chocolate”—that’s what drew me in. It was the title of a post that found its way somehow across one of my social media feeds and I was intrigued. I like chocolate! What I had stumbled across was the website for LearnBrite, a company that specializes in e-learning tools. They had already created 100 free virtual badges that were geared towards enterprise and were in the process of creating 100 more for use in a university context. They were looking for suggestions and of course, I leapt in with some ideas for anthropological badges. read more…

  • dateMarch 1, 2016
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  • posted byErin McGuire
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My name is Erin, and I’m an archaeologist…

Over the next few months, I hope to share with you some of my experiences and experiments with motivating students in first-year anthropology. Some days, it feels like I’ve tried everything, from Twitter to stickers, and bacon-flavoured crickets to i>Clicker quizzes. I’m always keen to try out options that might generate some interest from students. In next month’s post, I’ll tell you a bit about my latest combination of virtual badges and real life stickers and share a bit about how I’m using these to get people moving in ANTH 100. read more…

  • dateJanuary 27, 2016
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  • posted byErin McGuire
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