Old dogs can learn new tricks - sometimes reluctantly (fear of the unknown)

While it may be safe to assume that people have positive attitudes toward experimenting with new technologies in the workplace, it may be equally safe to assume that you will encounter people in the workplace who have low self-efficacy in experimenting with new technologies. Briefly describe a situation in which you have encouraged people to use a new technology and have been met with resistance or disappointing results. What attitudes did these people exhibit? What behaviors did they demonstrate? Using Keller’s ARCS model, describe how you could change the motivation of these people, or learners, to encourage success.

I have been working alongside all different levels of technology expertise with my seven science teachers. One was more advanced than myself and was a mentor to me. On the other side of the pendulum, we have two teachers who were just beginning to use emails when I met them three years ago. It’s been interesting to watch them go through the growing pains with the technologies that are required at our school. They each have very different attitudes. The older gent was retired and came back into teaching. All our teachers are required to maintain Moodle curriculum guides with students logged in and track student grades on Snap Grades. He was the first to admit his lack of skills but was always responsive to ask for help and training from his director, peers, me, and even his adult son when he was working at home.

The other teacher is younger but not far from his generation, struggles to the point where she doesn’t even seek help and last year made a comment that emails were a waste of time. I took her under my wing, with lots of encouragement and praise, and we camped out at her house with another teacher last summer for three days and two nights to build Moodle curriculum guides. Not only was she trained, but she had two full days of uploading practice. She was quick to catch on, but to this day still has issues because she doesn’t do it often enough. Fortunately, she has enough confidence to ask for help from me, knowing I will not condemn her and realizing the importance. Of all the teachers I work with, I still have to call her occasionally because I can never trust that she will check her emails in a timely manner. She has come a long way and is more comfortable with power points and LCD projectors in her classroom. She is also very personable and encouraging with her students, and respects their competence with technology.

To analyze her development using Keller’s ARCS model, she received ATTENTION from her director when Moodle became mandated and when SnapGrades were implemented and parents were calling the school to find out why her grades were not posted. She almost lost her job last year, but I rallied for her and that also got her ATTENTION and inspired her to learn it. RELEVANCE falls into the same scenario with ATTENTION since this technology was required on a daily basis for her to be successful and meet the expectations of her job. CONFIDENCE was significantly gained after the three days of training and constant practice. She was proud of her accomplishment and I was constantly praising her intelligence for learning it so quickly. She was clearly SATISFIED with her new found abilities, and even though she still struggles, I remind her that each one of us is at a different level with technology and we are all learning on a daily basis.

To summarize, I would like to quote Keller, who was very proactive with problem-based learning strategies:
“…a deeper level of curiosity may be activated by creating a problem situation, which can be resolved only by knowledge seeking behavior” Keller 1987. Keller 1983 called this inquiry arousal – enhanced motivation when they can experience the complexity of problems that is characteristics of real life.”