If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.
Holly Near

ARCS Model of Motivation

As a Learning Center Director, my role last year was to introduce and assist teachers and students to use our newly updated cataloging system. This system allowed for online access throughout the building, and students had the ability to employ search terms, limiters and reading levels to locate, hold and checkout materials. This system also allowed students and teachers to create resource lists of materials to share with other students and educators in the building, as well as write reviews of any materials held within the school and district. This was, what I considered, a very powerful, user-friendly, and time saving tool for educators and students alike.

That being said, some teachers were less inclined to utilize this tool than others. Looking at Keller’s ARCS model of motivation, I can pinpoint some of the issues involved that influenced the successful diffusion of this program’s usage throughout the building.

First of all (A), teachers didn’t feel that this lesson on usage of the system applied to them so much as to their students. Therefore, the activities that they were involved with, such as grading papers, distracted their attention from the lesson on using this system. In lacking attention, some educators missed the relevancy (R) of the acquisition of skills associated with this program, believing this to be a skill only students would benefit from knowing. Having prior unfavorable experiences with technology, these educators may have also lacked the confidence (C) coming into this activity, which could have created a somewhat spiraling affect prior to the onset of the lesson. This led to the lack of knowledge associated with the power of this program, the lack of understanding of it’s relationship to them, their classroom or their students, and their lack of usage, or follow through within the classroom. In other words, zero satisfaction (S) was gained by some of the educators in the attempt to implement this program. (I pause to SHIVER at the memory).

Great learning experience…for me, not them.

So, what would I have changed in order to better meet the motivational needs of the educators, and therefore influence the usage of this powerful program with students?

First of all, with a little more preparation ahead of time, I would have met with the teams of teachers and let them know of the powerful new application which I would be introducing to them and their students the following weeks. I would then, ask them to come prepared with some search terms relevant to a current subject within their classroom, and have them model the learning experience in front of their children as I acted as more of a guide through the process. This would attain attention, and conquer the display of relevance through the connection of a current topic in relation to their classroom. Allowing the teacher to take on the responsibility of the learner, by physically utilizing the program and the input of information, gives them the opportunity to attain confidence and acquire a sense of satisfaction with the experience of learning.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Foresight is too scary. But as I progress through my experiences, with forethought, information and knowledge, better results may materialize.