Audience analysis: Motivating students to learn through a learning management system

My blended learning module will focus on teaching student teamwork skills. Medical students in their fifth year will take this compulsory Management and Leadership module as part of the MBChB programme at Stellenbosch University.  The Teamwork Theme will be their first contact session of the new academic year, so students will, from past experience, be pretty much in ‘holiday mode’.  They may be rested following the extended Christmas break but also slow to get back into ‘study mode’.

It is also a known fact that students don’t regard Management and Leadership as ‘hard core clinical medicine’, so it will take extra effort to motivate them as to the relevance of the topic for their future practice.  The practical, experiential approach will also cause dissonance and uncertainty as it is not the traditional approach where students merely have to memorise and regurgitate facts, as is the case with most other theory modules. In fact, they have to work in teams and take responsibility for their own and peer learning.

So in designing the module, I have numerous ideas how to create curiosity to motivate to learn, but then I also need to focus and not overburden them with too much information and motivational videos, etc.  What will you do to motivate students?