Motivation and Engagement

Motivation in learning is the willingness of the learners to start an experience, while persisting in it is the engagement for me. Accounting for motivation is one of the most important components in design for me: I think of this notion from two perspectives: using motivation as entryways to introduce students to new experiences and further using motivation to sustain that engagement to help them deepen their knowledge in a field.

I love designing for first experiences as it gives me a chance to get to know my learner population, thus going deeper and understanding what will motivate them to engage in the activities that I design. First experiences matter as they can be a factor in students developing further interest in the field. That is why accounting for motivation, in this case, is essential, as it is the primary way to draw different groups of people into experiences and give them a chance to explore their possibilities in it. In one of the projects that I worked on, "Sustainable Self Care," the main goal was to engage students who mainly were not interested in sustainability. We approached the issue by understanding what would motivate our population of learners and anchored it in our design as an entryway. In this case, graduate students were generally more prone to attend experiences that would help them unwind, create something for themselves and take it home. That is what we did: we started a non-formal self-care workshop by subtly introducing sustainability through the products they make for themselves.

After the first step of exciting students, motivation also comes as students engage further and develop new knowledge and skills in the field. Using students' prior experiences, knowledge, and habits and embedding the newly learned ones to fit their interests is one of the ways I like approaching the issue. In another project, "Hug Bug," I have used students prior knowledge and interest - arts and crafts, plushy animals they regularly encounter with a new skill and concept - electronics and STEM. Concentrating on students' experiences and interests and using them as cueing forms makes it more likely that what you teach and the skills you give will likely stay and expand.

From my personal experiences and the projects that I worked on, I have seen how vital motivation and engagement are in any learning experience. As a learning engineer, it is crucial for me to design experiences in a way that learners want to start and further engage in them.