This book provides a fresh look at the question of learner motivation
and engagement, beginning with an investigation of potential motivations
not to learn, the better to help instructors find more successful ways
to engage learners in any given situation. After examining various kinds
of resistance to learning, the book goes on to describe effective ways
of overcoming resistance and engaging learners.
Grounded in the literature of many fields, such as Adult Education,
Psychology, Sociology, Cultural Anthropology, and Communication (as well
as the author's own decades of experience), the book connects the
concepts surrounding learning resistance directly to engagement and
human motivation, drawing these ideas together to make the case for
practicing motivational immediacy in all learning spaces. The second
section of the book focuses on the various tools effective teachers
might use to mitigate learner resistance and foster authentic and
lasting engagement. The author devotes a chapter to using curriculum and
Instructional Systems Design (ISD) processes to effectively foster
engaged learning in different learning spaces and contexts. Two chapters
are devoted to applying the theory and methods to specific domains:
online learning environments, and face-to-face classrooms with both
undergraduate and graduate students. The last section includes a chapter
that provides a potential method to measure effectual learning in the
classroom, and one that addresses the ethical issues sometimes said to
exist in efforts to mitigate learner resistance and foster engagement in
its place. The final chapter draws the book to a close by presenting a
fluid whole that will greatly improve understanding of the ideas as well
as the methods best used to reduce learning resistance, increase learner
engagement, and facilitate motivational immediacy and effectual
learning.
