The following is a brief exposition of a rewards/accounting system that I have been developing in the context of a college-level seminar style course. It arose out of the need to encourage active course participation, while at the same time, not having to rely on the facilitator/teaching assistant to police the over-sharers, the know-it-alls or, otherwise, those who exceedingly like to hear the sound of their own voice.

Various facilitator devices (the 'talking-stick' comes to mind) feel unnecessarily juvenile for the adult-aged pupils who attend courses at a college/university level, so I began racking my brain to introduce a method that will incentivize participation in the mandatory class-discussions.

To say a bit about the structure of the course, the learners must produce portfolios containing a given number of artifacts required for their course completion. This requires them to be self-directed and not to rely on a fixed course schedule or syllabus. Artifacts include their class assignments, tests or other work they produce in the context of the course - even class participation.

With all of this in mind, I introduced the concept of keeping a trust-score for each of the students, which is symbolized by the sum total of sats (or symbols of acquired trust) they are able to collect. These are small wooden beads that I bought at the local arts and crafts store, some of which I dyed bronze and gold, corresponding to their respective values. Student's actions can either earn them or cost them sats. For example, coming late or not showing-up without giving a proper notice costs them. Disrespecting others, or speaking out of turn, costs them. Not having come prepared to learn, also, costs them, among other things. Conversely, if they respond correctly during lessons, impress their instructor, attend class consistently for a given-period or otherwise act generously to another student, they are rewarded, and receive these beads, or symbols of acquired trust.

I won't get into their 'tokenomics,' but suffice it to say that the gold beads represent 1 000 000 sats each, of which there are 21.

As of now, their beads, or sats, act like a bearer asset of sorts. They are free to do with them as they please, be it making bracelets, necklaces, trade or just collect them in their pencil-cases. Any time they get 10 or 100 beads, they can exchange them for a bronze or gold bead respectively. The beads are symbolic tokens of the trust they have been able to earn throughout our course.

Also, they are able to exchange their beads for some in-class perks. For example, having collected 50, they can buy a 'get out of jail' pass, meaning they will be excused from being absent without question. 100 beads, and they can get a free pass on any assignment or test. For just two beads, they are able to prompt an in-class discussion by presenting to the class a topic of interest. Not having come to class prepared, they are able to 'rent' the class supplies, but for a small fee, paid in sats.

The group met the idea with a mixed response, initially. Some were afraid it would spark unfriendly competition. Others seemed mildly entertained by the thought of collecting beads, and others, yet, were eager to begin. I half-expected that. When they earned beads, some of them laughed and calling them 'gold stars,' and, when they were charged fees, waxed poetically that they had 'lost their skies.' Those who are normally chatty, and never hesitated to talk over others during class discussions, meekly began raising their hands to share their thoughts, while others, who were once meek and didn't bother to compete with the loud-mouths for space, felt emboldened to raise their hands. Everyone started wanting to earn some sats.

They were told that they would do a one-week trial to see how it goes. Further, if it descended into uncivil competitiveness, then it was promised that it would be fully withdrawn.

I have thought about allowing them to withdraw their sats for real sats (at a fair-exchange rate - no I will not give away 1 000 000 sats for a turmeric-stained bead), if they should wish to do so, in which case, I would help them to download a mobile friendly wallet and send them some actual bitcoin. I have not introduced this idea yet. As far as most of them know, sats means symbol of acquired trust.

Such a system would be easily implemented in any type of seminar. It just needs a logical and fair rationale for charging fees and rewarding desirable behaviour, that is clearly communicated, based on the facilitator's needs. My thoughts are that it could work at local bitcoin meet-ups, if these are conducted in a formal manner, or in other higher-level course seminars. I think this type of trust-based accounting system has the potential to force reflection on various different aspects that bitociners take for granted, like providing fair and reasonable incentives, resource management and not taking hard-earned trust for granted.