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Assignment 2: Finding the Motivation Training For Millennials

Amanda Hunter
OMDE 610, Section 9040
October 12, 2014

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Introduction
Course designers exist inside and outside the traditional, face to face classroom. This
paper will present a training for new enrollment counselors at The Learning House, Inc. (TLH)
seeking to understand the motivation for their potential students to return to school as adult
learners. This training, entitled Finding the Motivation (FTM), will be presented in adherence
with the Cognitivist Theory of Learning because it will not only encourage enrollment
counselors to accomplish the goal of encouraging a lead to apply to the partner school they
represent, but to also uncover the leads motivation for doing so.
Cognitivist Theory Fits with Finding the Motivation Training
Of the 25 enrollment counselors in the Louisville enrollment department at TLH, 23 are
in the millennial generation or people born after 1980 (Millennial generation, 2014). According
to Barnds (2009) millennials prefer to understand the why for their actions in the workplace
and desire a personalized approach to training. Their desire aligns with the Cognitivist Theory of
Learning as it seeks to mediate the conduction of knowledge and its receipt between teacher and
student (Harasim, 2012).
Additionally, TLH is growing exponentially. The essentiality of FTM will be both timely
and create efficiency because the enrollment department is tasked to hire eight new enrollment
counselors within the next 30 days. As a result, managers and directors need time saving
trainings that utilize technology to accomplish training goals. The growth within the department
is a result of new partner schools signing contract with TLH and increased enrollments at

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existing partner schools, so the department must hire adequate staff to meet the companys
enrollment goals.
In order to meet enrollment goals, the staff needs to ask key questions and observations in
order to discover potential enrollees motivations for returning to school. These motivators are
essential because these motivations can be used throughout the admissions process to continually
motivate, engage and encourage applicants. If leads and applicants are engaged throughout the
admissions process by being reminded of their initial motivations to return to school, their
likelihood to articulate, continue their studies and graduate is much higher (Ciampa, 2014).
Technology Used in Finding the Motivation Training
The training FTM will address the enrollment counselors desire to understand the reason
for the training and will train the enrollment counselors using technology. This technology will
include interactive activities within the training as Harasim suggests (2012). The preliminary part
of the training will present five primary motivators for adults to return to school. This will
include statistics and anecdotal feedback from prior adult learners at the same partner school in
order to illustrate the importance of understanding the how to continually encourage their
potential students and end with a recall assessment of these motivators. This will be titled Know
Five Primary Motivators.
The next activity, titled Choose Your Response, will include audio recorded files of
potential student conversations that allow enrollment counselors to select from three choices of
responses to continue the conversation with the student and how that conversation would affect
their lead. One response will be incorrect, another will be a longer approach to finding the
motivation and the third will be the most efficient approach.

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Next, the participant will be asked to assess three scenarios, each with an audio file, to
rate them on the enrollment counselors ability to uncover and reintroduce their leads motivator
throughout the admissions process in the Rate This activity. There will only be an efficient or
inefficient choice for each scenario. The final activity, titled Your Approach, will require the
enrollment counselor to record a response to the first five sentences of a student explaining why
they want to return to school. The recorded response will be fully available to their manager and
their manager can rate it according to the rubric.
Scoring the Finding the Motivation Training
The enrollment counselors manager will be responsible for scoring the training through a
rubric. This rubric will be based upon the trainings automated emailed results of the activities.
It will be primarily analytical because formative feedback is the goal and there will only be
one or two preferred responses (Mertler, 2001, p. 3). See Appendix 1 for the rubric used in
Finding the Motivation training. After scoring the training, the manager can use it in order to
provide one-on-one training in areas that may need additional development as Barnds (2009)
suggests as an effective training approach with millennials. Additonally, not only will the score
of the training will be a guide for continual training that an individual enrollment counselor, but
also the average of the new hires scores can be used to assess the need for improvement to the
FTM training.

Conclusion
Through the Constructivist Theory, enrollment counselors participating in the FTM
training will understand not only the outcome of the training, but the importance of learning

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motivators for adult learners. Additionally, it will allow enrollment counselors at the rapidly
expanding TLH to better determine a potential adult students motivation for returning to school.
The training will integrate the importance of learning a leads motivation with interactive
activities and a post training meeting with their manager. It will reduce the training time required
for managers and allow for targeted and individualized trainings and can be an assessment for
improved future trainings.

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References
Barnds, W. (2009). Millennials invading: Building training for today's admissions counselors.
College and university, 85(2), 63-66.
Ciampa, K. K. (2014). Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal
of computer assisted learning, 30(1), 82-96. doi:10.1111/jcal.12036
Harasim, L. (2012). Learning theory and online technologies. Routledge: New York, NY
Mertler, C. A. (2001). Designing Scoring Rubrics for Your Classroom. Practical assessment,
research & evaluation, 7(25).
Millennial generation. (2014). In Dictionary.com. Retrieved from
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/millennial+generation

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Appendix 1