Designing e-learning for maximum motivation

What follows is a series of notes from a Designing e-Learning for Maximum Motivation webinar by Ethan Edwards of Allen Interactions.

Introduction

“The goal of e-learning is to create meaningful performance change in the learner.”

Organisations choose e-learning for other reasons (cost, access etc.), but Learning Designers should remain focused on the performance change.

Learner motivation

Most learners aren’t intrinsically motivated.

• Media/animation isn’t enough.
• Learners want the shortest, least painful way through a course. They look for shortcuts.
• Traditional path: read text without purpose, unhelpful feedback, memorise trivia, long unbroken narratives.
• “Expedited” path: Hit next without thinking, random actions, guessing without consequence. Most people will pick this path in traditional e-learning.

LDs need to create experiences where learners won’t aim for the expedited path. We want active involvement in meaningful tasks (task-oriented, not content-oriented). We need tasks that require attention, where guesses are unproductive, and failure leads to a dead end rather than default completion.

Six rules to create motivation

1. Just say less

• Learners are motivated by tasks, not being recipients of lectures
• We need formal objectives, but we don’t need to tell learners what they are
• Make content-heavy resources available, but only when users choose
• Don’t include things just because they matter to the SME

2. Make it more challenging

• Include achievable challenges with appropriate risks
• This isn’t just about making it harder, but providing something that makes the learner think
• Withhold information until learner asks for it; ambiguity isn’t always bad

3. Delay judgment

• Contrary to what we usually think, give learners time to think and correct before providing feedback e.g. include an “I’m ready” button

4. Content-rich feedback

• Wait until they are engaged and interacting before providing content
• Put content in feedback instead of up front e.g. to see the consequences of their actions
• Naturally chunks content based on actions
• Safe failure – learners are most motivated when they’ve just made a mistake. Interest is high after you make a wrong choice; you want to know where you went wrong

5. Create levels of difficulty

• Increase challenges as their skills develop
• Vary how much help is provided
• Learners need a sense of accomplishment

6. Give more control to learners

• Prevents the feeling that learners are the “victims”
• Give learners responsibility - pace, sequence, help, choose when to be tested etc.

10 relevant facts about the brain

Connie Malamed’s top ten facts about the human brain to keep in mind when designing any learning event:

Top Ten

1. Our perceptions are influenced by what we know, what we expect and what we want to achieve.
2. Our brains like to organise perceptions into meaningful units and patterns.
3. Events in our brain happen rapidly and are measured in milliseconds.
4. We can quickly shift our attention to whatever is most important in the environment.
5. We pay attention to information that is meaningful and disregard what is not meaningful.
6. Working memory is our online space for figuring things out in the moment.
7. Because working memory can manipulate 3 to 5 items at one time, and because it has a short duration, it is considered a bottleneck in the learning process.
8. The advantage of a limited working memory is that it gives us the flexibility to quickly shift the focus of our attention and information processing.
9. Long-term memory is essentially infinite. No one knows its limits.
10. The knowledge, skills and experiences stored in long-term memory can be retrieved with the appropriate cues. Without the right retrieval cues, the information is difficult or impossible to access.