Topic 1: Learning, Theory, and Motivation

I had learned tons of things in my entire life, for example, Latin dance, drawing, guitar, sewing, chess, and blablabla. But none of them had lasted for 3 months. But about 5 months ago, I started learning programming by myself. In case you don’t know, I’m a BA(Bachelor of Art) economics student. And I am a woman. I bet you must be thinking: wow, really? That must be tough! Well, I had the same concern as you have before I finally decided to start learning programming by myself. And for now, you probably can see that the biggest challenge for me is to keep my passion and persist in learning.

Analysis

Compared to my previous learning experience, programming is indeed a bit difficult. But it’s fun and interesting for me to try to overcome the challenge I met when studying! After reading the materials about learning theories. I somehow figured out where my persistent passion for programming comes from. In my previous learning, I didn’t have a clear target and didn’t know what can I do with that skill or what would I get from learning it. All I know is that it would be cool if I get that skill. I was just learning with no aims! So, gradually my passion and motivation had gone. But for programming, I clearly know that I want to be a programmer after I graduate. And I feel happy from the heart every time I solved a problem that I came across when programming. The same thing happens when I am doing math. That feeling of accomplishment is the second most important motivation for me that makes learning persistent.

Keller’s Arcs Model

If you put my programming learning experience into Keller’s Arcs Model, you can find that I created much motivation for myself. Each time I learned a new key point, I’ll try to think: in what situation and in what way can it be used? This process perfectly fits two categories from Keller’s Arcs Model: attention and relevance. It can not only keep me focused but help me to understand and memorize the key point. In addition, trying my best to overcome the problem successfully refers to the last two categories: confidence and satisfaction. As I mentioned above, they are the second most important motivation for me that makes learning persistent.