Throughout this week and last, I evaluated Scientific Literacy (University of Alberta, n.d.) against Keller’s ARCS model of motivation. To be honest, I have felt dread thinking about this course, and how interesting I thought it would be when I began my audit. Now when I visit the course, I do so from a critical lens only, which has left me with no small amount of disappointment. Now as I consider Keller’s model, I understand in great detail why that is happening to me (and I can critically evaluate the data, so I know it is science!). I’ve really enjoyed facilitating this week. We have a pretty small cohort, and considering how close we are to the end of our time together, we thought it would be most helpful to approach this week with our final assignment in mind. This kept me on task personally, and has re-invigorated me to push through the final few weeks of the course (and Science Literacy too!)
If I were designing the course, I would have paid more attention to active participation, particularly mine as a facilitator in the discussion boards. The many pages of comments with no response seems lacking in instructor presence.
| Attention: Grab and hold the learners’ attention | |||
| Category | Design elements | Rate | Evidence in MOOC audit course |
| Active Participation | Games, role plays or other hands-on practice. | 1 | There are a lot of comments in the discussion board about quitting, complaining about various aspects of the course, and not directly engaging with the learning tasks. |
| Use of humor | Include short humorous stories or light hearted humour in the course to grab the audience. | 1 | The video presence is pretty lecture-based, and I haven’t noted much humour, yet there was a section titled “science-sploitation” which I found quite amusing, but I like a play on words. |
| Conflict | Present statements of facts that might be contrary to what the learner believes to be true. | 2 | At first glance, the first video demonstrates this concept as they explain an argument using scientific data and conflicting evidence. The end of the video encourages keeping an open mind to new information. In contrast, a learner posted in the discussion forum that some of the statements in the course material are quite biased, for example, “Science is hard”. The learner’s attention was grabbed, but the conversation stopped there (3 months ago). |
| Variety | Employ a variety of media to grab the learners’ attention. | 2 | Videos, course notes, and drag and drop tasks (that don’t work) |
| Real World Examples | Employ real life stories or examples to show that what is being learned has a practical application. | 3 | Evidence – anecdotal, logical, empirical: examples of a somewhat current hit song, loch ness monster, flu shot. |
| Relevance: The course design must establish relevance to be motivating. Use stories, language to which the learner can relate. | |||
| Link to previous experience | Help learners’ develop of sense of continuity by realizing they are expanding their knowledge base. | 1 | I’m struggling to find how this would fit for all learners. Because this course is open to anyone, their worldviews and experiences might be very different to those living in Edmonton or Calgary. Many of the videos talk about problems that someone might come across in a big city (bike lanes vs. vehicles, for example). Not everyone can identify with the struggle of a commute into a city centre for work. |
| Perceived present worth | Believe the course will equip them with the skills they desire to help them resolve a current issue. | 4 | The “About this Course” section begins with “Fake news or good science?” This is obviously a “hot topic” and one that comes up frequently in social dialogue. This was the reason I chose this course, as I thought it might provide me with some great information to share with others in case I ever get into a flame war on Twitter. (I don’t actually participate in things like that, but I am often a spectator). |
| Perceived future usefulness | The degree to which learners’ believe the skills will help them later in their real lives. Communicate from the very beginning. | 2 | I don’t know that the early learning objectives meet this criteria at all, with the possible exception of “differentiate science from common sense and intuition”. |
| Modeling | Offer presentations by those who might present them with a model of success. | 2 | This is presented as a beginner course, yet a basic knowledge of critical thinking is necessary to understand many of the topics and information presented. The ideas presented can be contradictory, and further explanation would help these points. For example, in the Traditional Knowledge session, they talk about accumulating knowledge from anywhere, but then critically evaluating it and validate it. Without the skills to do so, this seems to contradict the aims of the course work, and seems to argue that FNMI ways of knowing might not be provable scientifically. |
| Choice | Give choice in learning methods or media that they may find more effective. | 2 | Readings, videos, drag and drop, quizzes |
| Confidence: Instill a sense of confidence in learners by helping them see that they can succeed. | |||
| Facilitate self growth | Encourage small steps and then immediately show progress in the course. | 2 | The ability to re-take tests and quizzes allows for growth, but the feedback on the test answers only states that the questions are right or wrong, not why they are right or wrong. |
| Communicate objectives and prerequisites | Be clear on what needs to be achieved and how learners will be evaluated. | 2 | There is some evidence of this, but the lack of guidance in the discussion forums lowers this rating. |
| Provide feedback | Provide constructive feedback and ensure learners know where they stand. | 2 | Automatic feedback is given to the quizzes, but the drag and drop activities do not seem to work, and even if they are working, there isn’t enough feedback to tell a learner where they are going wrong. I attempted several and I had no idea if I was on the right track or not |
| Give learner control | Provide learners’ with some degree of control over the learning process. | 1 | Can pick and choose which modules to complete, which information to further explore. |
| Satisfaction: Learners should be proud and satisfied of what they have achieved throughout the eLearning course. | |||
| Praise or rewards | Present the learners with some kind of reward – can be a sense of accomplishment or praise from the online facilitator. | 1 | Built into Coursera- automatically when you click that you have completed a page or a task |
| Immediate application | Encourage learners to apply their newly acquired knowledge and skills in the real world setting or engage them in real problem solving activities. | 2 | Without the useful feedback, I don’t think learners will feel confident applying their learning to real-world situations. (They will on Facebook, regardless 🙂 ) |
Adapted from: https://elearningindustry.com/arcs-model-of-motivation
References:
University of Alberta. (n.d.). Science Literacy. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-literacy
Hi Tammy,
It seems like our U of As MOOCs are very similar as your evaluation is very similar to mine. I too have found it very hard to stay motivated. I do find the course relevant and really want to finish it, but with a very busy life, it is one of the first things to fall to the wayside. I feel if there was more attention paid to ARCS I would definitely be more engaged and motivated to stay on top of it.
🙂 Abbi