How to Motivate My Students?
At the beginning of a semester, I ask my students through online discussion forum why they are taking the library credit course to identify their intrinsic motivation. Most of them would say that they want to learn how to research effectively. For my face-to-face classes, I would draw a diagram showing the research process on a board. I explain to them the steps involved in a research process, the tools that they will learn to locate the sources in each step, and tell them that they will achieve their goal at the end of the semester if they actively participate in the class. Throughout the semester, I'll remind them where they are in the research process so that they could see how far or close they are to achieving their goal of being able to conduct research effectively.
When a student does every well in an assignment, I share it as an "Exemplary Assignment" and upload it to Moodlerooms. Even though the assignment is posted without the student's name, I think it meets the student's need for achievement (the need to strive for personal excellence), and my recognition of what the student has done provides him with extrinsic motivation.
This semester for my online class, I assign the students into groups of 2 to create booklists for each other based on their research topics, and each student does a discussion post afterwards to evaluate the books his or her teammate has created. This activity helps meet students' need for affiliation (the need to exert influence over others).
How to strengthen students' intrinsic motivation, and what instructional strategies "help achieve that optimal level of arousal (zone of curiosity) characterized by excitement, interest, and exploration during the information search process" (Small, p. 5) are questions I would like to find answers to.
Hi Hong, loving both your posts this week! Your visual in post 1 is excellent and I hope everyone in the course gets a chance to check out how you organized your process of linking learning theories with outcomes and activities. I also think you did a great job here, and the booklists activity should speak to what you're looking for in the zone of curiosity to some extent since it's more real-world and immediate. Kris's suggestions in the Moodle thread also looked good, and creating more peer connections like she mentioned can help with intrinsic motivation. Hopefully you all are experiencing that in this course, as we have been trying to leverage peer connections and expertise as much as possible!
ReplyDeleteNicole, thanks for the comment! I definitely enjoy the peer connections this course has made possible for us. Just wish I had more time so that I could read everyone's posts, which I'm sure would be very helpful. Would the course content stay available after this week? Also, Nicole, what do you use to make digital learning objects? Do you have a list of technology tools that librarians use to create tutorials, videos, etc.? Thanks!
DeleteHi Hong, yes you will have access for 6 weeks after the course ends, and it is available in our Zotero group. Here at my library we use mostly Guide on the Side and Storyline. Do feel free to ask others what they use in the discussion board if you'd like!
ReplyDeleteHong, I love your identifying students' intrinsic motivations. I am teaching one-shot instruction and sometimes students do not know the reason they go to the library. I am thinking at the beginning of the class, asking students to identify the reason they were in a library class will help me to identify their intrinsic motivation, but also help students to clarify the learning outcomes.
ReplyDeleteYiPing, thanks for reading my post. I think it even harder to motivate students in one-shot classes since we only see them once. I wonder if we could make up for the lack of connections with the students in one-shot instructions by using some kind of hook to get them curious so that in a way they would be somewhat motivated to learn.
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