COTE NOTE
The Center for Online Teaching Excellence What I know about Motivation in Online Teaching
Antonia (Tonka) Jokelova Tonka Jokelova is a Coordinator of Curriculum and Instructional Design at the SUNY Empire State College’s Center for Distance Learning. She coordinates online course development and revisions, designs and teaches webinars for course developers, and researches and works with accessibility-promoting methods for online course design. She also teaches online. Tonka considers herself a teacher by profession, mission, and passion. She has taught every age group, and taught in both traditional and online modalities. Tonka earned a Ph.D. in instructional design from the University of South Alabama. Her research interests include motivation and accessibility in online learning.
I would like to share what I know about Motivation in Online Teaching Motivational design refers to the process of arranging resources and procedures to bring about changes in motivation. Motivational design can be applied to improving students’ motivation to learn, developing specific motivational characteristics, and improving skills in self-motivation. Motivational design is systematic and aims at principles and processes that can be replicated. The primary focus of this model is on the motivation to learn with regard to strategies, principles, and processes for making instruction appealing.
What is it According to research, motivation is one of the key factors that influences course completion rates. The ARCS motivational model is a course design and teaching approach that proposes incorporating motivational strategies into learning environments in order to stimulate and sustain students’ motivation to learn. The ARCS acronym stands for attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction. According to the model, for a student to become and stay motivated, all these four categories have to be addressed in the instruction.
How it works According to Muilenburg and Berge (2005), learner motivation is the fourth substantial barrier to online learning. The ARCS motivational design process is a systematic problem solving approach that progresses from learner analysis to solution design. This process includes: • Knowing and identifying the elements of human motivation. • Analyzing students’ characteristics to determine motivational requirements. • Identifying characteristics of instructional materials and processes that stimulate motivation.
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• Selecting, applying, and evaluating appropriate motivational tactics.
Having been an online student
myself, I saw first-hand what a difference a motivationally welldesigned course can make in a student’s level of persistence and course enjoyment.
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What I did To incorporate motivational strategies into my teaching in alignment with the ARCS model, I provided opportunities for students that built relevance, promoted future usefulness of what they were learning, built on experience of my students’ interest or background, and provided choice in activities. I also incorporated inquiry and student engagement opportunities while providing variability in how I chose to display information.
How I did it Because of the perceived impersonal nature of online courses, course design and teaching plan should, in addition to instructional design, consist of motivational design to enhance student engagement in the course with the hope to retain them for the duration of the course, as well as the degree. Motivational strategies are technically simple. They consist of uncomplicated text and content creation that every course developer and instructor can implement in their courses.
Why I did it Having been an online student myself, I saw first-hand what a difference a motivationally well-designed course can make in a student’s level of persistence and course enjoyment. In my doctoral dissertation I set out to investigate what can be done to promote student motivation in online courses. And I have never stopped.
The Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence
February 10, 2016 • Volume 5 • Issue 1
COTE NOTE Staff The COTE Community Team: Alexandra M. Pickett, Associate Director, Open SUNY; Patricia Aceves, Director of the Faculty Center in Teaching, Learning & Technology, Stony Brook University; Lisa Dubuc, Coordinator of Electronic Learning, Niagara County Community College; Christine Kroll, Assistant Dean for Online Education, Graduate School of Education, University at Buffalo; Deborah Spiro, Assistant Vice President for Distance Education, Nassau Community College; Vicky Sloan, Distance Learning Coordinator, Clinton Community College; Erin Maney, Senior Instructional Designer, Open SUNY; Lisa Raposo, Assistant Director, SUNY Center for Professional Development This publication is produced by the Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence under the SUNY Office of the Provost.
What happened when I did it I strongly believe in the instructor’s responsibility to motivate students, which is the reason why I have always incorporated motivational strategies in my online courses. Student feedback praising most of the “visible” motivational strategies lets me know that motivational design, in addition to instructional design, is a powerful tool that I have to keep exploring and using in my online courses.
What I learned Incorporating strategies to address learner motivation increases retention and student enjoyment of online courses. Motivational strategies are not difficult to implement, nor are they time-consuming. Educationally speaking, they provide a large return on investment.
How others can use it Some attention-enhancing strategies include: • Introducing incongruity, variability, humor, and inquiry. • Choice, modeling and future usefulness are strategies to enhance relevance. • Confidence can be enhanced in online courses by clarifying learning requirements and promoting students’ self-confidence. • The sense of satisfaction can be promoted by unexpected rewards or scheduled reinforcement.
Links http://www.arcsmodel.com/#!motivational-design/cyrv
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The Open SUNY Center for Online Teaching Excellence
February 10, 2016 • Volume 5 • Issue 1