I've found that one way to motivate students is to include examples at the beginning on how they can be successful in the classroom. Here are some tips I've used- 1) Outline the chapters from the text and take notes as if they were in a regular class room. This reinforces the material. 2) Do more than just the homework problems but attempt to do other problems in the text 3) Start early with the discussions and assignments so that way if they have questions they have time to ask them before they are due. 4) Try and do outside research on the topic. If the same material continues repeating itself, that is a good way of knowing they are on track with learning the material. 5) Reach out to the instructor and others early in case there is any problems so as to have one less thing to worry about. What would be some other things to tell students how they can be successful in the classroom that you've used in the past?