I have definitely conflated interest with motivation and fallen into the trap of thinking, “oh, if it’s interesting, students will be motivated to learn.” But of course, this is not necessarily true, and there are so many things – within and outside our institution – that can impact motivation. One concrete thing I would like to do is to ask students explicitly what is their motivation for the course right at the outset of the semester. I am tossing up whether to have them send these to me privately or to have a discussion board where other students can see them. I want to go back to these mid-semester to see if there have been any changes, given that motivation is not static. I hope that by better understanding students’ motivation, I can tailor class, and also my responses to students accordingly (with the view to better retention and better performance).