How can you use intrinsic motivation to enhance online instruction?

Another way to use intrinsic motivation to enhance online instruction is to give students latitude to choose the subject matter of their assignments. Writing about or working on solutions for topics and issues that students actually care about is powerful. I have found that students are much more motivated to do good work when they have a vested interest in their papers and projects.

Offer choices and opportunities for self-directed learning, allowing learners to pursue topics of interest and set their own goals. Provide meaningful challenges and feedback to build competence and confidence. Foster community and belonging through collaborative activities, discussions, and peer interactions. Emphasize the relevance and value of learning objectives to learners' personal and professional goals.

Feedback can be given many ways, of course. But, two ways that tap into the student's need to succeed are: to ask questions - such as "What would be a more concise way to ...?; and to point out an example of a chronic issue and then instruct students to find that same issue elsewhere. Balancing positive and negative feedback is also important. I usually mention what was done well, make suggestions for improvement, and end with encouragement like "If you make these improvements, this will be a great paper (or an actionable project)." All of these suggestions are best implemented in an iterative process with multiple submissions and revisions rather than disjointed assignments.

A good way to create a supportive community using readily available tools is to require students to share their work in discussion forums and to ask constructive questions about one another's work. While students are in the cognitive space of applying learning, they can improve their classmates' work by asking questions as simple as "What did you mean by..." or "What is an example of...?". Requiring students to revisit and integrate this feedback is also helpful.

As my colleague mentioned, gamification should be used carefully and appropriately. Though the business world thrives on competition, not every student's personality or career choice will embrace this. Gamification in the form of badges and other token rewards for progress is great, but comparing students' success can be detrimental to learning for students with lower emotional stability, to use the "Big Five" term. And, the days of true "scaling" of grades is long-gone, having been replaced in many classrooms by competency-based learning. So, I would not recommend using competitive gamification to calculate grades.

Iterative assignments and scaffolding of skills are important in fostering a growth mindset. The generation that makes up most of the college classrooms today also wants to know "why" they are being asked to perform a task so making the connection between subsequent and iterative assignments clear is important. The Active Learning model of Learning Outcomes can be helpful here. Instead of "should be able to...", we can show a more direct correlation to the usefulness of a skill by adding "should be able to ... so that they can...[perform a useful task in the workplace]".