Lesson Plan 3

What students had as an assignment: Assignment 2

[30 mins] Part 1: Discussion of CH3 HWL: Discussion of Case Studies

Q: Would someone like to summarize the first case study?
Q: Would someone like to summarize the second case study?
Q: Did anyone have any similar experiences that relate to these case studies? With a “weeder course”?
Q: What are some of the factors that might lead to “weeder courses” happening? From the instructor’s perspective, what do you think causes instructors to behave like that?
Q: Does anybody have a reason why an instructor could be a good person but still teach a “weeder course”?

Motivating students
- Motivation is something you can affect to a degree– you can do things to either motivate or demotivate students in your class, but at the same time, there are limits to your influence. It’s important to think about and implement strategies to influence motivation, but for your own sanity, it’s important to keep in mind that students’ motivations are ultimately beyond your control.
- Circling back to the first story, It could be the case that nobody cares about philosophy, but maybe just because they’re not doing what you want in your class doesn’t mean the students don’t care about philosophy. There is a survivorship bias that professors have that makes it so that their own personal motivations influence how they judge other’s perceived motivation or lack thereof.
Connecting context of course to students intrinsic motivations
- It’s helpful to consider the expectancy and value of a topic and how they could impact motivation. When trying to motivate, it’s helpful to think about how the topic can have some value for students and how to convey that to them.
- It’s important to try to tie topics back to students’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, especially intrinsic motivation because research shows having intrinsic motivation can particularly help with resilience

Start with taking two minutes to review the strategies research suggests to motivate students on your own (from the end of CH3 HLW). Identify the strategies that you’ve either experienced, would like to try, or that otherwise jumped out to you
In groups of two, share the strategies identified that jump out to you
Then, each group in turn went around and shared the strategies that jumped out to them with the class
Some of the strategies discussed included:
- Early-on success- Helps students build confidence early, which can help motivate students
- Connecting Topics to Student Interests and the risks associated with doing so - It can help motivate students, but not all students have the same experiences or interests, which means sometimes the attempts to connect can miss

Each student presented their 5-7 min introduction to dictionaries lectures to the class
After each presentation, two students gave verbal feedback in a round-robin style, and the rest of the class gave feedback using a shared google doc
Things to discuss & highlight (that were common feedback given to students):
- If you’re going to introduce a concept that you’re not going to explain yet, explicitly signposting that you’re going to explain it later can be helpful
- Try not to speak too quickly, try to pace yourself, and find spots to take a pause so people can absorb what you’ve said (e.g., pausing right before you switch to the next slide)