Online students are busy folks! In Small Teaching Online, Darby describes the student who skips to the end of a unit to see what the summative assessment requires, and then skims the learning materials, only focusing on what is absolutely essential to complete the assignment (Darby & Lang, 2019). Instructors know that this behavior, while understandable in many ways, does not lead to deep learning. So what do we do? Intentionally employing both extrinsic and intrinsic motivational strategies is key to encouraging deep engagement.
Students are motivated by grades, so, whenever possible, associate learning activities with at least a few points. For instance, if you ask your students to watch a video, have them take a short auto-graded quiz after the video, or embed the quiz questions in the video. This is all about extrinsic motivation, but it works.
Another means of extrinsic motivation has to do with locking elements of the course. Use CourseDen's conditional release tool to encourage students to complete an activity before moving on to another activity. For example, have your students complete a quick reading quiz or submit an introduction paragraph before submitting a final essay or taking a final exam. You can also place conditional releases on modules or content within modules.
The extrinsically motivated student will get things done, but what we really want to strive for is intrinsic motivation. Cavanaugh (201?) urges us to tap into our students' emotions, as cognitive development and emotions are intrinsically connected. She cites Pigot's control-value theory to explain that autonomous students who value their coursework learn more and perform better. Furthermore, giving students a sense of control and autonomy helps to make them feel more invested. One simple way to give students a sense of control is to give them options and choices whenever possible. For instance, let your students choose a reading and have them teach the class what is interesting or important about that reading. You can also design assignments so that students can choose their own topics or prompts. See Dr. Arren Swift's video on how he uses Choice Boards to give students a sense of autonomy.
Encourage a growth mindset.
TILT the assignments, the learning modules, and even the whole course. The TILT framework for assignment design asks instructors to articulate clearly three main components: purpose, task, and criteria. Helping students to understand why they are completing certain tasks in relation to the course goals, their own professional goals, and even their personal goals motivates them to be more invested in their coursework.
Cavanaugh, S. (20
Darby, F., & Lang, J. (2019). Small Teaching Online. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Arren Swift, Assistant Professor, Early Childhood through Secondary Education
aswift@westga.edu
If you use any information from this site, please cite it appropriately:
UWG Center for Teaching & Learning. (2021, August 17). Motivate the ruthlessly efficient online learner. UWG Online Teaching Faculty Toolkit.https://sites.google.com/westga.edu/onlineteachingfacultytoolkit/online-teaching-faculty-toolkit