(THE AUDIO-ONLY VERSION) Each month, SDT's Richard Ryan joins us for a short, targeted conversation about a specific topic within the realm of SDT. For this inaugural chat, Rich talks about the application of SDT to the context of education.  Rich explores what really engages learners when learning. He highlights how supporting the needs for competence and autonomy are essential to engagement and how testing environments can undermine both.  He answers the question how rewards and punishments are specifically undermining. Rich also shares some strategies for classroom management to enhance the interest and engagement of students. While want to provide feedback, inherent to the intention of learner assessment, high-stakes testing has the opposite effect. Feedback is indeed essential, but high-stakes tests are gate-keeping instruments that do not help the motivational impact on students and don't provide that informational feedback. Ongoing assessment and feedback are, again, essential! Rich shares the effects of constant grading and how grading can have a detrimental effect on how motivated students are to learn. Again, he highlights that there is a difference between grading and providing necessary feedback for learning. We end our discussion talking about the policies we should put in place that support student development. Next month, we discuss the SDT in the context of business. Rich Ryan is a professor at the Institute for Positive Psychology and Education at the Australian Catholic University and a research professor at the University of Rochester. He lectures frequently in the United States and abroad on Self-Determination Theory and the factors that promote motivation and healthy psychological and behavioral functioning. He is also a co-founder of Immersyve, Inc., a motivational consulting company in Orlando, FL.