Designer Influence Methods
Designer Influence Methods
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While it is true that Delphinium is flexible and does not require you to change your course in any way to add motivation and engagement to your course, by now it should be clearer that your course can be purposefully designed to better take advantage of influence, beyond what Delphinium can do alone. You are likely doing many of these things already through intuition. The Educational Influence Framework provides many specific, actionable recommendations for ways you can add more influence methods to your course as a designer. You are likely intuitively using many of these. After you are comfortable with using Delphinium in your course, you may want to "level up" by applying more of these principles over time to your course. These are listed below.
Engaging
Engaging
Attention
Onboarding - Provide onboarding tasks that ease students into understanding the rules of the classFun and Play - Provide opportunities for students to experience fun and enjoymentGenerate curiosity through questions and explorationProvide variety in activities and presentation stylesSelf Regulation
Provide a clear structure for the class- Syllabus
- Course calendar
- Clear process for submitting assignments
- Limit ambiguity
- Give a clear indication of what "counts" and what does not
- Clearly define what success looks like
- Structure learning experiences so that they guide the student towards mastery
- Clarify path, pace, period, points, grading style, organization, release schedule, total points, group weights, and where points are tracked
- Where you have been, where you are, and where you need to go
Agentic Thinking
Give people opportunity to consider information more deeply and act according to itSalient information- Provide feedback on how to improve future performance
- Provide opportunities for introspection and articulation
- Provide opportunities to interact with content in situ through experiential learning, simulation, role plays, etc.
Motivating
Motivating
Relevance
Provide meaningful content and experiences- Make sure future utility is clear
- Align/establish relevance with students goals and values
- Provide a meaningful context/narrative, we are all story tellers
- Make an emotional connection
- Group problem solving
- Collaboration
- Competition
- Companionship
- Conformity
- Comparison
- Reputation
Success
Ensure a balance between appropriate difficulty and challenge and being too easy- Reward problem solving with harder problems
- Include rapid feedback cycles and low stakes
- Rewards as informational feedback, not behavioral control
Autonomy
Give students meaningful choices in the sequence, goals, pace, and strategy they use to complete the classNudging
Nudging
Social
Provide opportunities for social connection- Collaboration
- Competition
- Companionship
Personal
Create a sense of urgency- Lost opportunities
- But be sure students can recover
Environmental
Limit ambiguityLimit excess selection- But still allow for autonomy and choice
Supporting
Supporting
Learning Identity
Provide social credibility and recognition for academic achievements that might otherwise be invisible or denigrated by peersEmotions and Moods
Provide for positive emotional experiences (e.g., curiosity, joy, optimism, pride)Help students persist through negative emotional experiences (e.g., frustration, failure, anxiety, fear, helplessness, overwhelmed)Avoid creating negative emotional experiencesSocio-economic Influences
Create a learning community- Promote citizenship and loyalty
Personality
Accommodate different personality types- Inventive and curious vs Consistent and cautious
- Efficient and organized vs Easy going and careless
- Solitary and reserved vs outgoing and energetic
- Challenging and detached vs friendly and compassionate
- Secure and confident vs sensitive and nervous
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