OTAN News
The Science of Motivation
Posted on 04/15/2025
The two articles below offer some tips on motivating learners. Take a look and discover what you already do and what you could do to make it a part of your classroom project.
OTAN Stock Photos: TDLS2025
18 Tips to Engage and Inspire Adult Learners
Create Memorable Training Experiences for Adult Learners
- RELEVANCY
- Facilitate Exploration: Active participants in their own learning
- Assess your audience carefully & plan accordingly.
- Immediate Feedback
- Integrate Emotionally Driven Content: Powerful emotionally driven images and graphics which evoke a feeling.
- Emphasize the real-world benefits
- Break content up into smaller chunks to avoid overload
- Use Avatars and Storytelling
- Create Deliverables that can be completed quickly
- Practice makes perfect
- Aesthetically Pleasing Design Elements
- Build Community
- Challenge through games
- Use Humor!
- Add Suspense
- Allow time for processing
- Consider LMS platform accessibility
- Offer rewards (intrinsic ones)
The Science of Student Motivation
Motivating people to continue learning is an art all on its own. In Youki Terada’s article, The Science of Student Motivation psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, David Yeager, shares some tips which can assist teachers at any age.
- Connect Tasks to Real-Life Problems
- Respect & Status instead of an “enforcer mindset.”
- Balance criticism with support for students to meet high standards.
- Wise feedback showing care and high expectations.
- Transparent, clear messages
- Foster a sense of belonging by addressing why they may feel they don’t belong.
- Elicit a sense of purpose
Take a moment to reflect on your lessons this past week. Which of these tips do you automatically add into a learning moment? Is there one or two new ones that you can try out next week?