Learn. Show. Repeat.

Category: Motivation

  • My Word for 2017

    Towards the end of last year I starting thinking about my word for the coming year. I’ve seen posts on this before and recently I even came across the hashtag #oneword. Essentially, you choose a word that will guide your actions over the coming 12 months.

    Last year, I chose ‘build’ as my word which you can read about here. I felt I had mixed results with what I wanted to achieve last year so initially my word for this year was going to be ‘habit’. But on reflection, habits don’t just happen, I really need to develop the behaviours that become habits.

    So my word for 2017 is: Discipline

    In order to build good habits in learning and in life, you need to have discipline. Many of the goals I had last year, are still relevant. I want to further explore and grow and keep learning but sometimes I get caught up doing the things that I’m comfortable with. This year I want to be more disciplined in my approach – to make time for learning new things, reflecting, blogging, sharing and hopefully creating opportunities. I also want to be more disciplined with my own health and well-being (yes I know, everyone says that!).

    I like the beginning of a new year, it’s a fresh start and full of possibilities. So what’s your word for the year?

    Image source: Shutterstock

  • My Word for the Year

    A few weeks ago I saw a post by Helen Blunden where she was talking about her ‘word for the year’. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen a post like this – Dr Jason Fox and Renee Robson also wrote about their words of the year.

    After reading Helen’s post, I spent some time thinking about my goals for the year and what my word could be now that ‘focus’ was taken 😉

    So my word for 2016 is: Build

    tools for building

    The word build can mean building something completely new from scratch or building on the existing  or knocking down some of the old and replacing with the new. I’m doing a little of each and I don’t see it starting and ending this year, it’ll be ongoing. So, this is what I’m going to do:

    I’m going to build my knowledge and skills in coding, webinar delivery, screen casting, learning theory, online facilitation and curation.

    I’m going to build stronger connections with people in my network and build new connections.

    I’m also going to build my fitness levels to take on the City to Surf fun run in August (this will be the hardest one!).

    While it’s all very well to set some goals, but the first question is ‘what am I actually going to do?’. It’ll be a combination of things – looking for information and people who have skills and experience in these areas, experimenting and trying ideas, learning from the experience of others, practice, devoting time to learning, pushing myself outside my comfort zone and documenting along the way.

    So what’s your word for the year?

  • Integrating Motivation with Instructional Design

    As an Instructional Designer, motivating learners is an important consideration because in reality learners are not always motivated to learn. They are busy, have other things to do, don’t see the course/session as being important or have had a bad learning experience in the past. I’ve written previously about motivation – Motivation and eLearning – which was about satisfying autonomy, competence and relatedness needs of learners. I’ve come across Dr John Keller’s motivational design model known as ARCS and thought it was worth sharing.

    The ARCS model comprises four major factors that influence the motivation to learn – Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction. It’s described as a problem-solving model and helps designers identify and solve specific motivational problems related to the appeal of instruction. The model was developed after a comprehensive review and synthesis of motivation concepts and research studies. It has also been validated in studies across different education levels.

    Dr John Keller

    The four categories of motivation variables consist of sub-categories along with process questions to consider when designing:

    Attention = Capturing the interest of learners, stimulating their curiosity to learn.

    • Perceptual Arousal: What can I do to capture their interest?
    • Inquiry Arousal: How can I stimulate an attitude of inquiry?
    • Variability: How can I maintain their attention?

     

    Relevance = Meeting the personal needs/goals of the learner to affect a positive attitude.

    • Goal Orientation: How can I best meet my learner’s needs? (Do I know their needs?)
    • Motive Matching: How and when can I provide my learners with appropriate choices, responsibilities and influences?
    • Familiarity: How can I tie the instruction to the learners’ experience?

     

    Confidence = Helping the learners believe/feel that they will succeed and control their success.

    • Learning Requirements: How can I assist in building a positive expectation for success?
    • Success Opportunities: How will the learning experience support or enhance the learners’ beliefs in their competence?
    • Personal Control: How will learners clearly know their success is based upon their efforts and abilities?

     

    Satisfaction = Reinforcing accomplishment with rewards (internal and external).

    • Natural Consequences: How can I provide meaningful opportunities for learners to use their newly acquired knowledge/skill?
    • Positive Consequences: What will provide reinforcement to the learners’ successes?
    • Equity: How can I assist the learners in anchoring a positive feeling about their accomplishments?

     

    The following link is to a YouTube video where Dr Keller discusses the ARCS Model, some background in its development and the addition of volition to the model.

    ARCS: A Conversation with John Keller

    Apart from the motivational aspects of the model, what I really like about ARCS is that it puts the learner at the centre of the design process.

    After all, that’s how it should be.

     

    References:

    arcsmodel.com

    Keller, J. M. (1987) Strategies for stimulating the motivation to learn. Performance and Instruction. 26 (8), 1-7.

  • Motivation and eLearning

    Motivation has been and continues to be a widely studied area across many of life’s domains. Motivation is the energising force that initiates and sustains behaviour and ultimately produces results. Many motivation theories focus on the amount of motivation, with a larger quantity said to result in improved outcomes. However, as educators we shouldn’t focus on generating more motivation from people but instead focus on creating conditions that facilitate the internalisation of motivation from within people.

    Self-determination theory (SDT), an empirical theory of motivation by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, focuses on the degree in which behaviour is self-motivated and self-determined. It’s one that’s struck a chord with me because of its usefulness, applicability and it’s backed by extensive research.

    SDT proposes that all humans require the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs, namely:

    • Autonomy (a sense of being in control and having freedom),
    • Competence (a sense of being able to do something i.e. being competent), and
    • Relatedness (a sense of being associated or connected to others).

     

    Contexts that satisfy all three basic needs will help support people’s actions, resulting in more sustained motivation over time and positive outcomes. According to SDT, engaging in activities for their inherent satisfaction and that are enjoyable are said to be intrinsically motivating. This is because the motivation to engage in the activity is coming completely from within the person – it’s been fully internalised. The SDT continuum shows various forms of motivation from no motivation (amotivation) to intrinsic motivation which leads to self-determined behaviour.

    SDT

    Video Game Play – An Intrinsically Motivating Activity

    Every year globally, people spend huge amounts of money and time playing video games. Most people who engage in video game play choose to do so voluntarily, because it is fun and they enjoy it, thus making game play an intrinsically motivating activity.

    Research by Ryan, Rigby and Przybylski into the motivation to play video games (regardless of the game type) found that motivation is accounted for by how well the game satisfies our three basic psychological needs:

    1. Autonomy – the extent to which the game provides flexibility over movement and strategies, choice over task and goals, and rewards that provide feedback and not control.
    2. Competence – the extent to which tasks provide ongoing challenges and opportunities for feedback.
    3. Relatedness – the extent to which the game provides interactions between players.

    In addition to need satisfaction, their research also found that:

    Presence – the extent to which the player feels within the game environment as opposed to being outside the game manipulating the controls, and
    Intuitive controls – the extent to which the controls make sense and don’t interfere with feelings of presence, were also important as they allow players to focus on game play and access the need satisfaction provided by the game.

    gamification

    What’s that got to do with eLearning?

    Learners are not always motivated to complete eLearning modules/courses – it might be a requirement of their job or as part of a qualification. But, imagine if we could replicate the motivational pull of video game play and apply similar techniques to eLearning courses. Imagine if people wanted to complete them. If we can use strategies to support their competence, autonomy and relatedness needs we can assist learners to internalise their motivation of these types of externally regulated activities.

    Here are some ways that you can apply to your eLearning that can help improve learner motivation by satisfying their basic psychological needs:

    Autonomy:
    1. Allowing people to make meaningful choices that have consequences.
    2. Providing people with more than one way to reach their end goal.
    3. Allowing people to customise their environment e.g. choosing a character.
    4. Encouraging people to take risks and be creative during the eLearning module/course.

    Competence:
    1. Making the goals clear and structured.
    2. Allowing multiple opportunities to complete parts of the eLearning module/course to allow people to build their competence.
    3. Requiring people to frequently make decisions to keep the eLearning module/course moving forward.
    4. Measuring performance in multiple ways.
    5. Increasing the difficulty as people progresses through the eLearning module/course.
    6. Linking progression (the reward) to competence.
    7. Providing people with constant and varied feedback and support.
    8. Allowing people to review or replay earlier parts of the eLearning module/course.
    9. Recognising achievement.

    Relatedness:
    1. Providing space/areas for interaction and discussion e.g. forums.
    2. Providing opportunities for collaboration e.g. tasks.

    Motivation plays an important role during eLearning experiences and our challenge is to create eLearning that people want to engage in. As educators, we have an opportunity to assist people to internalise their motivation in the way we design and deliver learning experiences. While it’s not always easy, we should use strategies that help satisfy the competence, autonomy and relatedness needs of our people if we want to improve their motivation towards the module or course they are completing.

     

    References:
    Deci, E. L. & Ryan, R. M. (2008) Facilitating optimal motivation and psychological well-being across life’s domains. Canadian Psychology. 49 (1), 14-23.
    Kapp, K. M. (2012) The Gamification of Learning and Instruction. Pfeiffer/ASTD
    Niemiec, C. P & Ryan, R. M. (2009). Autonomy, competence and relatedness in the classroom: applying self-determination theory to educational practice. Theory and Research in Education. 7 (2), 133-144.
    Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000) Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions. Contemporary Educational Psychology. 25, 54-67.
    Also, check out this website for more information on self-determination theory: http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/