Motivational Design in Education

Motivation for learning is one of the key factors in academic success. However, there are relatively few people who possess a stable intrinsic motivation to acquire new knowledge and develop the necessary skills and abilities (that is, those who will actively, purposefully, and systematically learn, despite external conditions and possible obstacles). Moreover, students who complete the same assignment in the same classroom may be guided by very different motives: to learn something new, to avoid negative reactions from others, to interact with classmates, and so on.

Motivational design in education is a field of research and practice aimed at considering, tracking, supporting, and guiding people's psychological readiness for learning-related activities. The proposed course is practice-oriented and based on the project-based learning model.

The main objective of the course is to give students the opportunity to independently design the motivational component of the course: to study the motivational styles of learners, create motivational profiles, build a model of communication with the instructor and classmates that promotes the desire to learn, analyze students' previous experiences and interests, the dynamics of classes, and the cognitive complexity of assignments, and so on. As a basis for developing the motivational design, each team will receive one of the current courses of the School of Advanced Studies, which will allow them to "ground" new knowledge in specific material, track motivational dynamics over time, and offer their pedagogical solutions to SAS faculty. The course will use a chatbot based on large language models as an assistant to help students find the necessary theoretical resources, compare concepts, select relevant models for pedagogical design, and formulate recommendations. The course will be taught jointly by an instructor and a mediator.