Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Motivating Autonomous Knowledge Exploration, Yvonne Houy

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Flow Learning Design: Autonomous Knowledge Exploration The feeling of “Flow” — forgetting time — while exploring online media is common: As online instructor & instructional designer I want to encourage Flow in my students as they interact with my online learning materials. Inspired by research on student motivation and autonomous learners, I developed learning activities allowing students to choose learning paths with increasing freedom, while emphasizing core disciplinary skills and student learning outcomes. In an online social history course, I emphasized high interest topics such as the devastating effects of the Black Plague, and how sugar, coffee, and syphilis changed …