Motivated learning at home

In the Corona pandemic, most learning is self-directed and takes place at home. This presents students and teachers with unique challenges. While there are now many technical solutions and digital learning tools, self-directed digital learning requires much more than technology. When students learn at home and largely on their own, motivation plays a crucial role. To be motivated, students often need social inclusion, autonomy, and the experience of their own competence. When learning at home, social inclusion arises to a certain extent through regular contact with the teacher, but also through exchanges with classmates or fellow students, for example in forums or video conferences. But how can learning environments be designed in such a way that learners can act autonomously and do not feel trapped as if in a learning machine? Or in such a way that they have a real sense of achievement through the skills they acquire? Prof. Dr. Johannes Krugel, who conducts research on computer-supported teaching and learning at Leibniz Universität Hannover – with a focus on topics related to computer science in schools and universities – is dealing with these still relatively open questions. In a study involving five classes at two high schools, for example, he compares two digital learning platforms and teaching concepts for algorithmic principles. In the process, Prof. Krugel is investigating both the students’ motivation and the learning success achieved.