Motivation in Lingots

Being back in the U.S. after a year away on sabbatical, I feel freshly motivated towards the teaching and learning enterprise. I’m teaching myself a lot about how to optimize remote learning, but that’s because I’m motivated not to be a complete failure if we are unable to hold physical in-person classes when the semester begins. Since I really do want to provide my students with the best learning opportunities possible, I’m motivated to try and do my part as their professor, guide, shaman, or whatever new role gets plunked on us. I want to design the best possible experience, with the sober understanding that I won’t be great at it the first time around. I’m aiming for good enough.

 

How will I keep students engaged and motivated, given a potential all-remote environment, with likely increased blocks of asynchronous learning? There are plenty of tips from seasoned professionals and pundits alike, thanks to the Covid Toggle of last semester, which I thankfully missed. Chemistry is not an easy subject – it’s all about invisible entities that you represent abstractly with pictures, symbols, and some math thrown in, not to mention the extra jargon. I’ve decided to experience this remote environment for myself by enrolling in Duolingo. Also killing two birds with one stone by upping my Spanish. No owls will be harmed in this process.

 

I’ve blogged about my previous experience with Rosetta Stone, where I… um, degenerated to “laziness and suboptimal learning”. The circumstances then have parallel to my present circumstances, eerily enough. I chose to brush up on Spanish, now that I’m back, given that my skills have clearly degenerated. Can Duo the Owl help keep me motivated? Will I keep working every day for Lingots, the cash currency allowing me to buy swag in Duolingo? It’s still early days and I just completed my seven-day streak since signing up a week ago where I took a pre-test and it was determined that my knowledge constituted 16% of the course, allowing me to skip a string of early lessons.

 

So far so good.

 

As I attempted to peer into the crystal ball of whether I would keep up and improve, I consulted my spouse who has a 340-day streak; she’s kept up since the day she began. Since we were moving to another country for a year, she chose to learn one of the oft-spoken languages there; she had no background and was starting as a complete beginner. (I had low-level competence.) Did Duo the Owl keep her motivated with his encouraging one-liners? Did earning Lingots give her a boost to keep going?

 

Sadly, no.

 

Her motivation has waned since we returned since we’re no longer in a context where that language skill is a plus. Early on, she was more motivated, as the lessons were easier and she felt like she was learning new things and making good progress. But as the material got more difficult and daily progress felt less accomplished, motivation waned. Getting on the leaderboard and advancing leagues was motivating in the beginning, but this gets harder as you move up in the company of highly motivated Duo-fanatics. At this point, she doesn’t want to break her streak, so it’s mostly for maintenance – not necessarily a bad reason. Lingots were motivating only if it helped with some sort of advancement. The cute owl Duo had no effect. Sadly.

 

It’s still early days for me. I enjoy being cheered on by Duo. I’m looking forward to earning more Lingots so I can get some costumes for Duo (so I’ve been told). I’m on the leaderboard and likely to advance out of the Bronze League to whatever’s next by this weekend. I’ve spread out the lessons I do for distributed and interleaved practice, including trying out some of the lessons I “skipped” due to the placement test. So right now, at least in Week One, I’m behaving like a motivated, excited, student. Things are novel and exciting.

 

But will this hold up over time? I don’t know.

 

Reflecting on this made me think about the things I could do to help keep my students engaged and motivated throughout the semester. Week One is easy. But the going gets tougher, and it’s harder to feel motivated. I don’t have Lingots to hand out, nor am I sure if they will do any good. I’m not a cute green owl, but I suppose I can spout lines of encouragement and optimism. Fun little apps (e.g., the “race” in Socrative) for classroom engagement lose their luster quickly. I’m hoping some of my assignments spark interest even while they push students to sink their teeth into the nuances of chemistry. I certainly don’t want to make things too easy.

 

But while I’m still motivated, I should keep my daily appointment with Duo!