Learning is an action that requires the involved parties to have the passion and interest to acquire knowledge on an individual subject. Various activities take place during a learning experience, and therefore it is advisable that motivation is present. As seen in the topic the discussion will be mainly about motivation designs and how they are chosen. Motivation is a factor that explains why people partake in a particular action. It can be defined as the desire to pick a particular thing, work or commitment. The internal process mainly involves the observation of choices, intensity, effort and persistence one puts. It initiates a behavior which it maintains, controls the power, meditates and stops it where needed. There cases where it is more of goal oriented (Robison & Watson, 2013).
Once a learner is motivated, it helps them focus on these factors that could interfere with their learning engagements. There are two ways of looking at it, in that it can either be stimulating and empower a learner’s intrinsic motivation or provide extrinsic motivators of a student’s engagement. Instructional simulation, on the other hand, provides the students with an opportunity to engage and interact with a challenge or a phenomenon to help come with knowledge and skills. Simulations are involved in the giving of instruction through the use of an already existing simulation and ensuring there is an understanding, or the learner creates their simulation while designing their model creating an understanding of the model (Robison & Watson, 2013).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
There are various way models can be used in a simulation. Firstly is the use of a pre-existing model which is quite commonly used simulation in instructions. The typical flight simulator used by pilots is a good example. They sit in the virtual cockpit where they conduct certain procedures which are related to safely flying an aircraft. In the creation of one’s model, an example is a science teacher who asks the students to use software to represent and show how volcanoes erupt. As a student, they are expected to research how the eruption takes place then come up with a computer model that will show the volcano eruption activity. Learning will only occur through the building of a model that will represent real world phenomena to facilitate learning (Robison & Watson, 2013).
The types of instructional simulation are four but are divided into two groups. The first group is a simulation that trains and teaches about something which contains two kinds of instructional simulation. They include physical and iterative simulations. There is also the how to do something group which is made up of procedural and situational instructional simulations. Physical simulation is whereby physical phenomenon or object is represented and helps the learners interact. It is where the student manipulates variables to represent an individual physical object, and observation is made on how the physical object reacts to the full representation. Examples of the simulation are a rubber ball that is bouncing, development of the weather system and development of oceanic wave systems. The iterative system is one that is similar to the physical simulation, but they differ in the interacting with the simulation. Here the learner can manipulate variables and eventually runs the simulation.
Through this observation of the effects of the parameters is done by the learner and can change certain parameters while repeatedly running the simulation. They are both good because they help the student understand certain aspects (Robison & Watson, 2013). A procedural simulation that is found in the second group of how to do something. It is used to mainly train a certain sequence of actions to achieve a particular objective. The flight simulator is used again as an example in this case where the operator is given certain condition and carry’s out a procedure where it is simulated, and the aircraft is safely maneuvered. A situation where a simulation is involved in a process is considered a procedural simulation. There is now a situational simulation which mainly includes the interaction of organizations or people in certain situations. An example is given of a simulation where avatars are used to trains soldiers on how to deal with a situation where there are innocent civilians in a place of war. The scenario uses the position to come up with a simulation that will help them understand on how to deal with it. Simulation types tend to present a different motivation and challenge profile which will require the following of motivation principles and practices (Robison & Watson, 2013).
There are various component elements of motivation that help in understanding their association theoretically. The elements are presented through learner motivation models. There is attention, relevance, confidence, satisfaction, experience structure, context, Social effect, identity leveraging, fantasy, aesthetics and foundational; basic need fulfilled. Challenges and opportunities are also experienced with the motivational design instructional simulations. The first opportunity is that it is an active learning in itself. In a situation where minimal design is presented, learners may face the experience of challenge that may be the reality on the ground. It is a strong opportunity because it prepares the learners for those challenges though could be the beginning of challenges with the simulation. Challenge faced is that a learner could get lost in the simulation experience. The learners should always be monitored to the complexity of the interface being used. It may lead to overwhelmed learners who may find it difficult to make choices when it comes to the ground. The challenges of motivation tend to differ for experts, novices and part-task simulations (Robison & Watson, 2013).
In conclusion, instructional simulation is very impactful when it comes to teaching about things and how to do things. They need learners to come up with responses, and the construction of the replies is mainly related to how much one is motivated (Robison & Watson, 2013).
Reference
Robison, D. G., & Watson, G. S. (2013), Guidelines for the Motivational Design of Instructional Simulations. Malala Yousafzai , 41.