Overview

• Motivation is the best predictor of learning, and this episode covers typical ways learners are motivated, and how they can be demotivated.
• Situation we’re often dealing with:
  • Most scientists just want to do science, and view programming as a ‘tax’.
  • Early programming experiences often demoralising.

Creating a positive learning environment

• Is important for learner success
• Crucial to establish workshop as safe space for learning
  • Present instructor as learner: OK to make mistakes (live coding)
  • Establish norms for interaction: code of conduct, taking turns in discussions
  • Acknowledge material is challenging, and their misunderstandings are valid

Teach most useful first

• People learn best when they care about a topic and believe they can master it.
• Aim to teach something they think is useful in first 15 mins.
  • Something they can apply to their work
  • Also builds confidence in us for later episodes, if the useful bit takes longer to get to
  • ‘Authentic tasks’ will be highly motivating

Exercise: Authentic tasks

• Think about some task you did this week that uses one or more of the skills we teach, (e.g. wrote a function, bulk downloaded data, built a plot in R, forked a repo) and explain how you would use it (or a simplified version of it) as an exercise or example in class.
• Pair up with your neighbor and decide where this exercise fits on a graph of “short/long time to master” and “low/high usefulness”.
• In the class shared document, share the task and where it fits on the graph. As a group, we will discuss how these relate back to our “teach most immediately useful first” approach.

This exercise and discussion should take about 10 minutes.

Motivation strategies

• Connect the material to students’ interests
• Provide authentic, real-world tasks
• Show relevance to students’ current academic lives
• Demonstrate the relevance of higher-level skills to students’ future professional lives
• Identify and reward what you value
• Show your own passion and enthusiasm for the discipline

Exercise

Strategies for motivating learners

• Discuss ideas from the list in the shared document, and describe how they can be applied in our workshops

Exercise

Brainstorm motivational strategies

• Think back to a computational (or other) course you took in the past, and identify one thing the instructor did that motivated you.
• Pair up with your neighbour and discuss what motivated you.
• Share the motivational story in the shared document.

This exercise should take about 5 minutes.

Demotivation

• Motivation can go both ways - don’t crush their enthusiasm!
• No-one intends to demotivate, but it’s easy to do accidentally.

Exercise

Brainstorming demotivational experiences

• Think back to a time when you were demotivated as a student (or when you demotivated a student).
• Pair up with your neighbour and discuss what could have been done differently in the situation to make it not demotivating.
• Share your story in the shared document.

This exercise should take about 5 minutes.

Demotivators

• Unfairness and indifference
• Other things not to do:
  • Be scornful of any tool e.g. Excel, Word, GUI applications
    • By association, learners will feel like you’re criticizing them
  • Dive into complex discussion with 1 or 2 people
  • Pretend to know more than you do
  • Use the J word (just)
  • Feign surprise

Stereotype threat

Self-confirming belief that one may be evaluated based on a negative stereotype

• Anxiety about confirming those stereotypes can reduce performance
  • Don’t remind people of negative stereotypes
  • “I’m so glad you’re here because we don’t get enough women in programming.”
• Never learn alone
  • Get people to sign up in groups

Imposter syndrome

Dealing with imposter syndrome

• Ask for feedback from someone you trust, and believe it!

• Learn from role models

• Academics are particularly susceptible (isolated working, public results)
• Share stories of your mistakes and struggles
  • It’s OK to find things difficult!

• Emphasise that you want questions

Accessibility

• Unequal access to lessons is demotivating!
  • e.g. screen readers unable to read images
• Not always possible to accommodate everyone, but can have a structure in place
  • Do easy things first, gives confidence other concerns will be addressed
  • e.g. font, text size, room access
• Accessibility measures help everyone
  • e.g. curb cuts, image captioning

Exercise: Learning about accessibility

The UK Home Office has put together a set of posters of dos and don’ts for making visual and web-based materials more accessible for different populations. Take a look at one of these posters and put one thing you’ve learned in the shared document.

This exercise should take about 5 minutes.

Inclusivity

• Policy of including people who might otherwise be marginalised
  • e.g. women, people of colour, LGBT, disabled
• Making a positive effort to be more welcoming to those groups
• Make notes free of gendered pronouns, use culturally diverse names
• Emphasise the rate of learning is important, not their starting point
• Encourage pair programming

Code of conduct

• Sets expectations for participation
• Just the fact it exists tells people something about our values
• “Be excellent to each other”

Key points

• A positive learning environment helps people concentrate on learning.
• People learn best when they see the utility in what they’re learning, so teach what’s most immediately useful first.
• Imposter syndrome is a powerful force, but can be overcome.
• Accessibility benefits everyone.