Motivation by Design: Helping Learners Stick with your EdTech Product

This course series explores how to design EdTech experiences that do more than capture attention, they support lasting learner motivation, confidence, and growth. Grounded in learning science and product design, the series equips you with the tools to move beyond surface-level engagement and build products that learners return to because they’re genuinely invested.

You’ll start by uncovering what motivation really is, how it influences learning outcomes, and how design decisions can either support or undermine it. From there, you’ll learn how to guide users through the early stages of their journey with effective onboarding, personalized pathways, and well-designed rewards. The final course focuses on long-term strategies – how to respond when motivation dips, foster social and emotional connection, and help learners develop a sense of purpose and identity through your product.

Whether you’re creating a new learning tool or improving an existing one, this series will give you the insight and strategies to design for motivation at every stage – so learners don’t just get started, they keep going.

Designing for Motivation in EdTech

This course introduces you to the foundational principles of designing EdTech products that foster not just engagement but meaningful, sustained learner motivation. You will explore how motivation drives learning outcomes, how to distinguish surface-level engagement from deeper investment, and how product design choices can either support or undermine motivation.

Through real-world examples, research-backed frameworks, and applied activities, you’ll learn to design with motivation in mind. Using tools like Self-Determination Theory, Expectancy-Value Theory, and Bandura’s four sources of self-efficacy, you’ll practice evaluating and improving your product to foster learner curiosity, confidence, and persistence. By the end, you’ll be able to recognize motivational challenges in your product, apply practical design strategies to address them, and create learning experiences that help learners not just start but keep going.

Designing Product Experiences that Motivate Learners

This course builds on core motivation theories and product design principles to help you support learners through every stage of their journey – from their first login to moments when motivation starts to dip. You’ll explore how to recognize when users are losing interest, how to re-engage them with thoughtful design choices, and how to sustain motivation through personalized support, well-calibrated challenges, and meaningful rewards.

Through research-backed frameworks, design examples, and practical activities, you’ll learn to craft onboarding experiences that spark early interest, implement rewards that motivate without backfiring, and personalize the learning path to help users stay committed. Whether you’re designing something new or refining an existing product, this course will help you make intentional, learner-centered choices that keep people coming back, because they’re motivated to grow, not just to finish.

Supporting and Sustaining Motivation Over Time

This course guides you beyond the initial spark of motivation to explore how to keep it alive, especially when learners face setbacks, lose focus, or question their progress. Building on the foundations from Courses 1 and 2, you will learn to recognize the signals of disengagement, respond with empathy and insight, and design for motivation that endures.

Through real-world case studies, learning science frameworks, and hands-on activities, you will explore how to use feedback loops, social connection, and identity-affirming design to help learners stay committed over time. You will practice measuring engagement across emotional, behavioral, and cognitive dimensions and use that insight to inform design decisions that are inclusive, ethical, and sustaining. By the end of the course, you will be equipped to support motivation not just in moments, but across an entire learning journey, helping learners persist, reflect, and grow.