Reflection: Assessing motivation strategies (Online activity 3.2)

What have I learned about motivational strategies?

Initially when I read Bonk & Khoo's (2014) article I thought the motivational strategies referred to in online activity 3.2 were the Tech Variety Principles, however after reading the article again I realised these were two different things - that were woven together. The motivational strategies I found for each of the four learning perspectives are as follows:




After looking more deeply at motivational strategies, and realising that the Build a Pterosaur activity was the activity I found had the best motivation and engagement strategies (but had the least amount of technological affordance), I realised that it was important to read further about motivation in online learning/courses to gain a better understanding as a teacher who highly values blended/online learning. I came across mentions of online courses having high drop out rates and ICT in blended environments leading to disengaged learners in many of the articles I read (Kahu & Nelson, 2018; Huh & Reigeluth, 2018; Howard et al., 2016; Spring et al., 2018). This lead me to wonder whether the blended learning activities I have provided have been engaging and motivational or just another boring activity at school.

One point that really grasped my attention was the notion of successful students having strong self regulation skills and teachers promoting self regulated learning. I feel the research conducted by Huh & Reigeluth (2018) highlighted some interesting points about successful online students and courses; and how I can possibly support my students in a blended environment to be as successful as possible if they ever chose to study in an online course in the future. Many of my students would benefit from online courses due to the isolated area we live in, their cultural capital, and outside influences (Kahu & Nelson, 2018). 

The key idea I have taken from reading more about motivation strategies, is that using devices and fancy computer apps is not enough to keep students motivated over a sustained period of time. I need to spend more time building students self regulation skills to empower them to be more independent. A few of the aspects I would like to promote with them is goal setting, intrinsic motivation, time management & planning, reflecting & flexibility (Huh & Reigeluth, 2018). I cannot just expect my students to be self regulated learners without them being taught and therefore need to explicitly teach these skills. 

References:

Bonk, C. J., & Khoo, E. L. (2014). Online motivation from four perspectives. Adding some TEC-VARIETY : 100+ activities for motivating and retaining learners online. Open World Books.

Howard, S. K., Ma, J., & Yang, J. (2016). Student rules: Exploring patterns of students’ computer-efficacy and engagement with digital technologies in learning. Computers & Education, 101, 29-42. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2016.05.008

 Huh, Y., & Reigeluth, C. M. (2018). Online K-12 teachers’ perceptions and practices of supporting self-regulated learning. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 55(8), 1129-1153.

Kahu, E. R., & Nelson, K. (2018). Student engagement in the educational interface: Understanding the mechanisms of student success. Higher Education Research & Development, 37(1), 58-71. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1344197

Spring, K., J., Graham, C., R., & Ikahihifo, T., B. (2018). Learner engagement in blended learning. In M. Khosrow-Pour (Ed.), Encyclopedia of information science and technology (4th ed., pp. 1487-1498). IGI Global.

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