Rural Tech Educator

           Motivation is needed in all fields. The term motivation means "the general desire or willingness of someone to do something," according to the Oxford Dictionary.       The term "motive" came from a Latin root meaning "to move." It is the "why" of behavior and is defined as a desire that urges us to do something  (Cheng & Yeh, 2009).  When people ask you "What is your why?" what they mean is "What is your motivation to do what you do?"      In a classroom context, motivation refers to students’ subjective experiences, particularly students’ willingness to participate in class activities and their reasons for doing so. In a business environment, motivation helps us pursue a goal, persist in our decision and determine how much effort to spend on tasks  (Cheng & Yeh, 2009).      Extrinsic motivation occurs when the cause of motivation exists outside of an individual and the task...

 YouTube: Devlin Peck      Instructional designers create effective, engaging learning experiences. They draw on best practices from education, design, psychology, systems theory, and creative writing to create eLearning, face-to-face workshops, job aids, and other performance support solutions (Peck, 2023).      While trainers or teachers deliver instruction to a live audience, instructional designers work behind the scenes. Instructional designers collaborate with subject matter experts (SMEs) to design and often develop the learning experience, but they rarely deliver it to a live audience themselves (Peck, 2023).      We think of instructional designers mainly in education, but they are needed in many other industries as well.      This blog takes a look at how instructional designers work in a variety of industries and organizations.                    Bu...

  In the world of instructional design models, it can be overwhelming trying to decide which model to choose. A contemporary conceptual frame of reference, that incorporates a consideration of designer expertise, contexts, traditional approach to instructional design, as well as emerging approaches to instructional design, for comparing instructional design models at this point becomes necessary (Edmonds, et. al, 1994). In their article, “A Conceptual Framework for Comparing Instructional Design Models,” Gerald S. Edmonds, Robert C. Branch, and Prachee Mukherjee discuss the need to create a frame of reference for all instructional design models. There paper emphasizes that this is not an argument for more instructional design models, but rather, a call for ways of comparing existing instructional design models and new models as well. The authors state that instructional design models share a number of common characteristics, such as categorization, context, and level, in addition...

  The COVID-19 pandemic opened the door to an increasing wave of online instruction or e-learning, especially in university courses. Because of this, there is a strong need for a pedagogically effective instructional design model for online instruction to facilitate the development and delivery of online learning environments (Chen, 2015). A poor-designed online course often makes the students lose their focus and feel frustrated. Online students will not know where to start, what to do, when to communicate, and how to learn if an online course is not well-designed (Chen, 2015). Two instructional design models, the Pedagogically Effective Online Instruction Design Model, and the Community of Inquiry Model, are two models that are good to use to create an engaging and pedagogically effective online course. We will look at both of these models and how they work.   Pedagogically Online Instructional Design Model          ...