How To Develop An Exciting, Motivating Course Using Four Course Design Concepts

In this paper, we will describe how we used four course design concepts to develop two new courses that have been successful in exciting and motivating students. Our efforts to include motivation and excitement as course design parameters are tied to increasing importance being placed on retention rates, graduation rates, and student satisfaction with their college experience in recent years [2-3]. Faculty members are beginning to buy into the idea that retention rates and graduation rates must be improved in order to bring public accountability to the table in curriculum planning. Developing courses that are motivating and exciting will certainly help this cause. This is in contrast to the prior faculty beliefs that (1) it is not their responsibility to motivate and excite students, (2) students should be motivated by what the future will bring when they earn their degrees, and (3) should be excited by the course materials under the assumption that they chose their major based on interest.