The Motivated Learner

Matthew S. Richter

Saying you want to motivate your learners is easy to say and impossible to make happen. However, you do have influence over a learner’s environment. You can affect the tools and resources she has to learn new tasks and skills. You can provide effective activities and content as he learns and practices. You can provide evaluations that give the learner proper feedback so she knows what to do to improve. You can demonstrate and facilitate understanding of the meaning and purpose your workshop offers. You can provide options for how one engages with your course within the constraints of effective learning science and instructional design. You can foster relationships and peer learning when appropriate and frequently involve learners in their own learning process. And, so much more. This session will provide tips and techniques for supporting all of the above as you strive to meet the needs of those learners. By the end of this session, you will:

• Discuss the role of motivation in the training context

• Learn how to leverage the use of rewards and reinforcement systems when they are advantageous

• Explore alternatives to reward/reinforcement strategies

• Explore your own intentions as you apply motivational strategies to learning

• Identify the components of motivation, or the basic psychological needs, that include a sense of relatedness, a sense of competence, and a sense of autonomy