Beginner level
No prior experience required
Sustaining Motivation Through Identity, Reflection, and Resilience
Flexible schedule
1 week, 6 to 8 hours per week
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*Proof of full-time student enrollment required. Acceptable forms of ID include a letter from your university’s registrar office or an unofficial transcript. Email your documents to learnlab-help@lists.andrew.cmu.edu.
What you will learn
- Explain how identity, reflection, and resilience contribute to long-term motivation.
- Design reflection opportunities that help learners notice progress and setbacks productively.
- Create learning experiences that reinforce learner agency and a sense of belonging.
- Apply motivation-supportive design choices that help learners persist over time.
Course description
Long-term motivation depends on more than a strong first impression. Learners are more likely to persist when learning connects to identity, when they can reflect on progress, and when course design supports resilience during setbacks.
In this course, you will learn how to design for sustained motivation through identity, reflection, and resilience. The course focuses on helping learners see themselves as capable participants, notice their own growth, and stay engaged over time through supportive design choices.
Syllabus
Module 1: Fostering Long-Term Motivation Through Identity, Reflection, and Resilience
- Design identity-affirming features that help learners internalize positive roles and see themselves as capable, evolving participants in the learning journey.
- Develop learner-facing reflection and self-regulation tools that support long-term motivation by reinforcing progress, resilience, and ownership.
- Synthesize motivational design strategies across all units to build a personalized, context-aware roadmap for sustaining engagement, identity, and autonomy in real-world EdTech contexts.
Meet the instructor
Dr. Amy Ogan
Amy Ogan is the Director of the Learning Science for Innovators program and a Professor in Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, with a courtesy appointment at CMU-Africa. Her research sits at the intersection of human-computer interaction, learning science, and educational technology, with a focus on designing learning experiences that are more engaging and effective. She has conducted field research on the deployment of educational technology across five continents. She has been named a Jacobs Foundation CRISP Fellow, World Economic Forum Young Scientist, and Rising Star in EECS by MIT. She has received the McCandless Chair, the Moran Professorship in Learning Science, the 2024 SIGCHI Societal Impact Award, and numerous best paper awards. Before Carnegie Mellon, she was a visiting researcher at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies and the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her research is supported by the Mastercard Foundation, National Science Foundation, Google, McDonnell Foundation, and Jacobs Foundation.
Where to go next
Designing for Social and Peer-Driven Motivation
Design for lasting motivation by supporting identity, reflection, belonging, ownership, and resilience over time.
From Signals to Support: Detecting and Responding to Motivation
Track, interpret, and respond to motivational signals so learners stay engaged, supported, and on track.
Social-Emotional Learning for Learning Designers
Design learning experiences that support social-emotional competencies and create conditions for stronger learner growth and connection.