Generally speaking, Royal Military College of Canada (RMCC) courses are delivered in the traditional lecture method. This is natural because faculty probably learned their specialization in the same way. The lecture method is a viable instructional strategy for intrinsically motivated learners (those who think of how to use their learning to better themselves) with life experiences who are reflective or theoretical learners and is suited to subject matter best delivered according to the behaviourist philosophy (stimulus, response, reinforcement). Now, what if you must teach young people who by and large are extrinsically motivated (what’s in it for me?), who have limited life experiences, who are practical or active learners, and who must learn content that doesn’t have just one right answer? A constructivist philosophy is called for in this case: a paradigm shift from students who are passive recipients of instruction designed for them to students actively involved in determining their own learning needs are and how they can be met. Enter the field of Instructional Design. Instructional design is a method of matching learner characteristics (motivation, experience, age, attitude, learning style, background, education), to the conditions for learning, especially content.
Using the frame of constructivist conditions for learning, this session will explore a model which is an adaptation of Motivation Theory by Keller (1983) adapted by de Vincent (2003) in Weibelzahl and Kelly. It demonstrates how effort, performance and consequence are the outputs of both the learner and the organization. If students bring their own inputs (learner characteristics) and we as the learning organization supply the environmental factors (conditions for learning), then ideally the selection of instructional strategies to match the learning goals should address the output of effort, performance and consequences through increased motivation.