Meaningful Work - The Utility of Outlined Notes

I like Dr. Dan Ariely.  I like him because he has the ability to explain what motivates Humans.  

I understand this is a 20 minute video, and I understand you have many things that you could probably be doing, but this video is important for two reasons; 

1]  It helps you understand the reason behind my requirement for notes.

2]  It helps you come to realize that your the quality of your education depends on what you put into it.  Simply requesting a re-take for your Assessments, Quizzes and Tests does little for you unless you put some work into understanding the reason for requesting a re-take.  

Something to keep in mind...

Your reward is not in getting the re-take.  Rather, it is in having the opportunity to learn from your mistakes on an immediate level; Learning, and by extension, school is about making mistakes.  The more mistakes you make, the more opportunity you have to learn.  Just so long as you realize that your learning requires that whatever challenges you face must be meaningful.

Now, what I have written here relates to my reasoning behind requiring notes, there are many ways you could interpret this video.  And that is the beauty of learning how to learn; you can apply these lessons to many different situations in life.  These concepts work for relationships, for work, and for motivating people to do something, and even for establishing policy or running organizations from small businesses to government.

Here at SAMS, we have an agreement; you work and we make sure your work is at a certain quality.  Each teacher has a different approach, and mine includes, "Trust but verify."  This means, I want you to do you work, but I cannot force you to care about your work.  

This is why I do not require notes to be turned in at the end of the semester.  Yes, it gives you the opportunity to walk away from your responsibility.  However, it also gives you an opportunity to get "paid" a potentially higher grade.  My question is, If someone offered you an opportunity to paid more for just trying harder, why wouldn't you take it?  The way I see it, you would have to be nuts to not get paid for just loving your job! 

Finally, remember anyone can copy and paste - but your challenge is to make what you have learned your own.  It makes no sense to have beautiful notes that someone else put the effort into.   Using notes created by others makes as much sense as expecting a plant to grow from planting cut flowers.

I would love to know what your thoughts are on this video, how it relates to you, and how you think you can apply this knowledge to your life, or how this information can be related to others in your world.

For those of you who would like to read more about the phenomenon of meaningful work, this is the book where Dr. Ariely explains it in more detail.  I will offer 5 points - that's a half a grade added to your end of semester grade - for anyone who reads the book and gives me a 1200 - 1500 word summary and discussion of what you have learned from what you have read.