TEACHING INTRODUCTORY GEOLOGY ONLINE: AN EXAMPLE COURSE DESIGN TO INCREASE STUDENT MOTIVATION

One of the challenges when teaching online courses is student motivation. Therefore, we designed an online geology course using several strategies to increase student motivation. First, we followed best practices when designing online courses, such as following the same format for each module, sending regular emails and announcements, and creating short instructional videos. To help us stay organized as instructors, we created a schedule that included emails and announcements to send each week. Second, we followed best practices for student learning in general, such as making topics relevant to students, giving students a choice on project topics, and using frequent quizzes to allow for retrieval practice. Finally, we gamified the course, such as allowing multiple attempts to complete assignments, using additive grading with a point system, and giving students a choice of assignments to complete. In a gamified class, students have options on how to earn a certain point level to earn a grade, they can redo assignments at least once to show they learned from their experience, and a low grade on an assignment does not decrease their grade but it does not advance it either.

We surveyed students, asking them what course design strategies helped them stay motivated. The top responses were allowing multiple attempts to complete assignments, following the same format for each module, using additive grading with a point system, making topics relevant, sending regular emails and announcements, and giving students choice of topic. These responses indicate that students felt that the three overall strategies we used when designing the course were successful in helping them stay motivated. We also asked them what parts of the course helped them learn the most. Their top responses were reading from textbook (Focus on Geology), watching videos the instructor created, taking quizzes, completing the “big” projects, taking the exams, and completing the labs.

This poster will give examples of each of the strategies used and link to resources where many of them are available on the internet.