For week 1 of EDCI 335, we were given a series of prompts to choose from. I chose the prompt discussing online learning and how student motivation can be negatively impacted by online and/or asynchronous learning modules. I will be drawing information from my own personal experience with online learning in a class taken earlier this year, and how my learning and motivation were impacted by looking at course motivations through both the Self Determination Theory, as well as the ARCS Model. 

 

What initially motivated you to start with?

For this particular online class, we were asked to choose a “passion project” to work on throughout the semester. As I am in the BEd (Bachelor of Education) program, I was motivated to write a short children’s book about anxiety, and common coping strategies that can be used and implemented for students to use. It was meant to be a resource for both students and teachers, by providing a thorough resource of not only strategies for coping with anxiety and mental health struggles, but also allowing for open conversations within classrooms about the idea of having big feelings, and that it is okay to have those big feelings. I felt as though, especially in the younger years, students are left to constantly adapt, learn, and change throughout their school years, and all these new activities and settings can leave young children overwhelmed and frustrated. Opening up the topic of why we feel that way and how we deal with it can help students feel less alone. I was definitely motivated at the beginning of this class by the sense of autonomy we were given, as well as the fact that I felt the assignment gave me a sense of purpose, as it could be a resource in later years to both myself and others.   

 

When did your motivation start to shift? Why?

Although I started the passion project extremely motivated and excited to implement my own knowledge in both child development and mental health into a helpful resource, my motivation quickly shifted roughly three weeks into the assignment, or more specifically, once I had submitted my first 2 or so assignments in relation to the passion project. I found that once my work was handed in, it was quickly returned with little to no feedback, leaving me slightly questioning where to go next with my work or how to improve upon it. This discouraged my motivation because it did not give me a path of where to go next, or show me that there was much care for my work/learning within the class module. 

 

What aspects of the design contributed to the disengagement? 

I found that not only was the lack of engagement and feedback discouraging me from performing well within the class, but the fact that the class was set up as a “Complete or Incomplete” module, so not only was feedback minimal, but there was no assessment, standards, or guidelines to follow when doing our work aside from the requirement of multimedia inclusions (images, hyper-links etc.) This was extremely discouraging because it took the reasoning out of the learning. There was no motivation to digest the lessons, and little reason to implement them into our demonstrations of understanding, because we were not being assessed on them. 

 

Which learner needs were not well supported?

I experienced little to no progress or accomplishment throughout the course due to minimal feedback and the absence of grades. There was no accomplishment when completing my work, which ties into the ARCS model of satisfaction. I also felt as though there was little to no support through the learning process, not that I was not encouraged, and the comments left by the instructor were always positive, but since there was no constructive feedback or support, I felt as though I was often left guessing about what to do on the next steps.

 

How might the experience have been designed differently?

I feel as though it would have been helpful for there to be more engagement with others during our passion projects, whether that was feedback from classmates, or peers, it would have allowed for more opportunities for guidance, criticism, and communication. I also feel as though with clearer expectations (what each assignment progression should look like, how our work should be formatted, etc) and an opportunity for assessment, I would have felt more motivated to complete the tasks to the best of my ability, rather than to just get a COM at the end of the semester.