WIIFM
At the beginning of a course, I like to put the learning outcomes on a power point and leave the entire lecture hall as an open discussion. Students can brainstorm their perspectives of “What is in it for me?” and I enter their responses into the ppt. It can become quite fun, hectic, and loud! This transitions this exercise into an ice breaker as well, and it exposes students to other’s reasons for taking the course, how they will be applying the learning outcomes to their personal learning experience, and it helps create a positive group environment.
The downside is that when you have a large class (e.g. 100 or more students) the group is too large. Therefore, asking the students to form groups of six to eight (where they are seated already in the class) is more manageable. Each group can ask for a volunteer to summarize their input to share with the whole class. I will then add the content to the ppt under each learning outcome.
With either method of performing this activity, the ppt (which the students and I created together) is published on the course online discussion board so students can re-visit it throughout the course. This becomes a review activity every few weeks. Students do their own self-inquiry, ‘checking in’ to examine if their original WIIFM remains applicable once they have been exposed to the course content.
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