LearningTimes Green Room

In this episode, Susan and Dan revisit a universal topic: how to motivate learners.

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Show Notes:

Susan and Dan revisit a universal topic: How to motivate learners. They base their discussion off of Learning Solutions e-Magazine article “Five Strategies to Enhance Learner Motivation in e-Learning Design” by Joe McCleskey. This newsletter is available through E-Learning Guild as an associate member (free). To put this in context, McClesky is mostly talking about self-paced elearning courses.

Strategy 1: ARCS model – Attention, Relevance, Confidence and Satisfaction. Susan spends a good deal of time boosting confidence. Dan resonated with the idea that intrinsic motivation lasts longer. Extrinsic motivation is not inherently bad.

Dan describes a baking activity as an example, and Susan questions the assessment.

Strategy 2: Think structure. Nine to 10 minutes at a time! This relates to the cognitive science about changing activity, and the ideas behind accelerated learning support this, too.

Strategy 3: Increase visual interest. Photos, video, graphics. Images must directly represent the content. As for video, Joe writes that today’s audience has high standards, but Susan thinks about youTube.

Strategy 4: Emotion. The advice is to take a light approach, however. Too much emotional edge will bury the learner and could backfire.

Strategy 5: Tell a story and use the narrative.

Put these 5 together and you have a checklist that can apply to any design.

Book review at the end of the article: Visual Language for Designers by Connie Malamed. Connie also hosts a blog, and in one of Dan’s favorite entries, she shares a tip for building curiosity called progressive revelation.

Listeners, tell us what you find most compelling and what motivates you. How much do you think about this as you design? Continue the discussion by posting at ltgreenroom.org or talk to us in LearningTimes! We facilitate discussion in LearningTimes.org or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada).

How do we learn best from conference participation? In this episode, Dan and Susan talk about what they do when they go to conferences, and invite us to share how we get the most out of our own conference attendance.




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Show Notes:

Dan and Susan talk about what they do when they go to conferences. How do we learn from conferences?

Dan goes to more face to face conferences whereas Susan attends more online conferences.

Both tend to go to sessions they know something about or that will have direct pay-offs. We are economists of time and money! Susan saves time online.

How do people network when at an online conference? Additional resources, discussions, or side conversations within chats. Susan also follows people on their blogs and finds other contacts through blog rolls.

Dan has struggled with how to follow up and managing what to do? Maybe this is something conference presenters should do in their sessions: creating opportunities for networking.

Susan points out that with online conferences, it is easier to leave a room if the sessions isn’t what you want. Plus she can follow recordings. She’s learned not to multitask.

Dan has been given the opportunity to leave sessions in face to face, too. He sees that more and more the conferences are about networking and not just about getting information and tools. Their friend Kevin Johnson recently twittered about a conference, and Susan followed the entire conference.

Dan will be a panelist in November in San Jose at a conference on how to create good educational videos.

October 7-8 Susan will be at the Jossey-Bass Online Teaching and Learning Conference at with big name speakers like Curtis Bonk, Sharan Merriam, Patricia Cranton and Edward Harris, Randy Garrison and Norm Vaughan on Blended Learning.

Listeners, tell us how you get the most out of your conference attendance. Continue the discussion by posting at ltgreenroom.org or talk to us in LearningTimes! We facilitate discussion in LearningTimes.org or call us at 1-800-609-9006 x8055 (US and Canada) or 678-255-2174 x8055 (outside US and Canada).