Curiosity: Activating Internal Student Motivation when Teaching Online

The most important result from the last twenty years of classroom research has been the shift from “teacher-centered” to “student-centered” teaching; the so-called: Active Learning revolution. Yet this effort is incomplete since it has narrowed its focus to the question of HOW students learn. And for teaching to be “student-centered” one must first understand WHY students WANT to learn. By understanding student motivation we would be able to fully integrate them into their learning process. Using the definition of curiosity offered by cognitive scientists (Loewenstein’s Information Gap Theory of Curiosity), this workshop will provide some basic strategies instructors can use right away to motivate students to learn by creating curiosity. I then place the concept of student motivation in the context of the modern role of the instructor. The end goal is to inspire and empower instructors to appreciate the value of human instruction in the age of the teaching machine.