Essential question week 2

In the context of the online setting it is very important to find the “motivator” (like in that show “Wipeout”) that is going to set in motion the creativity and effort from the learners. That is why I believe that projects are very important in online classes. I also believe that working in groups or alone has to be an option. One important step the instructor has to complete is creating a setting around the course that empowers the students. The student needs to know at every time that they are in control of the project and that the instructor is in the sidelines ready to help but does intervene or interject, even if they know that the students are taking a difficult approach. In Daniel Pink’s video the premise of workers or anybody for that matter, achieving the level of motivation that leads to creative breakthroughs is apparently achieved by creating the right conditions described by those three steps of autonomy, mastery, and purpose. I believe that one approach would be to start asking the students in an introductory presentation what makes them work to the late hour, what excites them, what compels them to do something beyond of what is expected from them. Then, after careful review of the answers, the instructor could facilitate the introduction of students with similar ideas, and maybe group them for a group project. The instructor could set up a discussion forum for each group so that they could come up with a project that would test their creative powers, and encourage them to follow their own ideas. I think that letting them know the project will carry a grade would cause the project to derail, since that could cause the students to believe that they just have to do enough to earn the grade to pass the course. As an encouragement I would present to them past examples of what it can be achieved by working this way, and that they can take this beyond the course setting, to their workplace, for example. As an instructor, I would have to pay attention all the time to their progress by checking on the discussion forums and probably weekly reports that they can send me. I could also arrange live meetings to hear from their project too, the point is then to keep in touch with the groups and students working alone every week.