Week 2: Motivation

You can’t go three minutes at a university these days without someone telling you that computers and the web are about to revolutionize the way we teach. On the other hand, we have tried several times, and several ways, to move Software Carpentry’s classes online, but the results have always been disappointing: most learners don’t seem to find webcasts or bulletin board discussions rewarding enough, or engaging enough, to stick with them. We’ll explore why not, and what we can do about it, in the coming weeks; as background, please read Chapter 3 (“What Factors Motivate Students to Learn?”) of How Learning Works, which makes the following recommendations:

1. Strategies to Establish Value
   1. Connect the material to students’ interests.
   2. Provide authentic, real-world tasks.
   3. Show relevance to students’ current academic lives.
   4. Demonstrate the relevance of higher-level skills to students’ future professional lives.
   5. Identify and reward what you value.
   6. Show your own passion and enthusiasm for the discipline.
2. Strategies That Help Students Build Positive Expectancies
   1. Ensure alignment of objectives, assessments, and instructional strategies.
   2. Identify an appropriate level of challenge.
   3. Create assignments that provide the appropriate level of challenge.
   4. Provide early success opportunities.
   5. Articulate your expectations.
   6. Provide rubrics.
   7. Provide targeted feedback.
   8. Be fair.
   9. Educate students about the ways we explain success and failure.
   10. Describe effective study strategies.
3. Strategies That Address Value and Expectancies
   1. Provide flexibility and control.
   2. Give students an opportunity to reflect.

Please then write a post for this blog describing:

1. things teachers and fellow learners have done that have motivated you to learn (i.e., what’s worked for you);
2. things they have done that have demotivated you (i.e., turned you off); and
3. whether and these things (both positive and negative) can be done online.

Please:

1. Be as specific as possible about what motivated/demotivated you and why (anecdotes are good).
2. Put your post in the “Week 2” category (like this one) by Friday Sept 14, so that everyone can look everything over before our group discussion.
3. Include an estimate of how many hours you spent on this task.