Social and motivational learning are key to enthusiastic, authentic, and engaging learning experiences for students. With the rapid evolution of software over the past few years, I'd like to work on developing more social learning opportunities for past/current/future asynchronous students to interact as well as better use of leveraging technology for motivational learning for the students.
In this first module, we have learned about how to both engage and motivate learners. I think that this will be helpful for the hybrid course I am about to start teaching. I am excited to begin! One strategy I plan on using a lot is communication. This hits both engagement and motivation as by discussing things with learners, I am engaging them and helping to motivate them. Two examples on how I plan on engaging them is through effective feedback and reminders. I also plan on bringing a part of me to the course to show that I am really there for them and care about their success.
Yes, motivational engagement is important. It is also a way for students to think critically.
Providing constructive feedback by showing the student what they got correct and showing how they can improve their answer is important in student engagement. When a student is not answering substantively, I provide a feedback with an open ended question to give them opportunity to expand on their answer and be more substantive.
I typacly like to use interactive labs and gamifiied learning or video content from other sources for new prospectives.
In this module I have learned the importance of engaging with the student before and during the course. Students need a variety of ways to stay engaged and motivated.
Mantener la atención en clase es todo un reto e incentivar a la participación aún más, sin embargo con las pautas del modulo en la cual se apertura a una comunicación más abierta permite la atención de los participantes, generando continuamente el interés por los temas desarrollados.
I have learned that many of the kinds of engagement activities I already use in my courses work to promote better student-to-student and student-to-instructor relationships. I also now have specific terminology to explain my process and kinds of philosophies I use in my classroom.
I learned that keeping online workers engaged and focused can be difficult, but there are a number of ways to help with this challenge: ----It's helpful to make introductions early and communicate with them as much as possible.
-Interactive tasks help keep their minds moving and add variety to the learning process.
-Look for feedback from students to see if theres any aspect of the online learning process that theyre struggling with, give them feedback in return.
-"Chunk" the learning material into manageable sizes, to help students tackle it piece by piece without getting overwhelmed and bored.
-
I teach a blended curriculum (half online/half in-person instruction). Since we meet in person, I often overlook the importance of student to student engagement online. I like the idea of incorporating more discussion boards to enhance participation online. I also like the idea of content chunking. I feel like I do this in a lot of my online lectures already, but not all. Looking at it differently, chunking allows the students to not feel as overwhelmed when faced with a lecture, especially those students who are working around other work schedules/home life. I also feel like breaking the material into chunks can offer better opportunities for discussion prompts between videos.
This course has been helpful to introduce new ways of keeping students engaged in asynchronous courses as well as confirmed that some of the methods that are already being used are good to keep. Making directions available in a variety of ways and introductory activities seem to be the biggest new idea takeaways that I plan on exploring in future courses.
This course really enforced the affect and meaning of instructor and staff engagement. At my previous institution, the technology including our LMS, was severely limited and outdated, and because it offered only asynchronous courses, the president had structured it so that there was 0 contact from instructors. Students would only have content with admissions advisors, academic mentors, and alumni advisors. Receiving feedback from instructors as the content experts is a key component to social engagement though. And having systems that allow for versatile, effective and efficient communication and incorporate useful technology would increase motivational engagement while decreasing procrastination and the number of inactive students.
It seems to me a very useful course, it teaches us to know options to interact with students with different tools and maintain their interest in the course
I have been both an instructor and student in online courses and this has given me better insight for both perspectives. I have learned about better interactions with my students and the importance of specific feedback and individualizing some aspects of the course.
i learned the importance of student feedback to keep online learners engaged in the process
One thing that I have learned is that communication is key in helping to motivate my students. Whether they are a great student who is engaged in the course or one who is struggling, when we communicate with our students that helps to motivate them in their engagement. I also feel that the more visible and active we are in our courses, that shows the students we are engaged and they want to engage more as well.
Kara
I think this course pushes me to think about every assignment my students have in each course and evaluate it for effectiveness from an online engagement aspect. Are we giving them just 'busy work' to fulfill a course requirement so they can just earn a grade and move on, or are these assignments including student engagement that is meaningful and leads to real and useful learning after graduation once in their field?
Comment on Edgar Sanabria's post: mismo
I am a work in progress. Today, I took over a class for a comrade who went on vacation. As you might have deducted from the the word start there was no preparation for what I got myself into. Keeping it real and just saying. I was on slippery ice with the students not knowing them or me. They knew what to do in class but equipment and supplies were limited. I wanted the students to be in there perspective groups of three but fate would have it otherwise.
I though it was a matter of participation but it finalized into lack of equipment and motivational support from the students. You have leaders and followers. The advance students took the lead and supported the other students whom did not process the assignment because of being tired from work and other issues. There is a lot going on in the mind of a student. Especially a teacher who has been to war. The battle field was less challenging.
So far, I can see from the material presented as well as just me taking this course how important it is to keep students motivated and engaged. Having intermittent "activities" mixed in with the instructional sections was helpful. I appreciate that students all learn differently, and this is helping me to really think more about ways to engage students with different learning styles as well as different motivational styles as well.
