Cognitive Flow and
Learning
By Zalino
Bona
An activity that gets me into that state where I’m
totally immersed and lost to the world, is reading. Suspenseful books have that
effect on me. Another activity that can take me to a new world is crafts;
especially when I’m creating something. Egg decorating, knitting, sewing and
making things with fabric or paper get me into that state where I’m so caught
up in what I’m doing that eating and sleeping can seem like distractions.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
calls this state of engagement ‘flow.” He describes the flow experience as: “when a person is
completely involved in what he or she is doing, when the concentration is very
high, when the person knows moment by moment what the next steps should be …” For Jill Suttie, it is “that feeling of complete
immersion in an activity, where we’re so engaged that our worries, sense of
time, and self-consciousness seem to disappear.”
When I am engaged in an
activity like egg decorating, for example, I think of a design in my mind, and
I use different materials and work with the goal of transferring the
design in my mind to the eggshell. I get instant feedback as I see the plain
eggshell being transformed into a multi colored object with swirls, lines or
other geometric designs. The challenge lies in working with tiny beads, paint, yarn
and other materials on a fragile eggshell, while trying to create something
aesthetically pleasing and as perfect as possible.
Why do I experience flow
when I am engaged in an activity like this? It is hands on and challenging. I
can increase the level of challenge by changing the material or making the
design more intricate. There are clear goals and feedback, and I enjoy working
on it. All these conditions foster flow, according to Jill Suttie. The conditions for flow, according to Csikszentmihalyi are clear goals and feedback, and the right level of challenge: “ the feeling that what you can do is more or less in balance with what needs to be done, that is, challenges and skills are pretty much in balance.”According to Csikszentmihalyi, Suttie and others, hands on activities, rather than lectures, the right level of challenge which requires a good balance between the challenge of the activity and the skills of the person engaged in that activity, team projects, and giving a wide array of choices can be powerful motivators. And when students can connect what they are learning in the classroom to their own lives, they’re more likely to be more invested and engaged.
A wise mentor once said
that “technology is useful because it enables us to know and access what’s out
there so we are not reinventing the wheel.” The internet has tons of ideas on all
the things I love to do. My personal learning network contains a list of resources
that I could dig into for ideas and suggestions. Some sites that I
love to explore and turn to for ideas are:
www.hobbycraft.co.uk
If flow helps me to take
learning to a deeper level, as a teacher, I believe this is an area I should be
exploring to make my lessons more meaningful to students and to take them to
new levels of learning. I need to explore ways to create conditions that foster
flow in my class to enable my students to engage with their lessons to enhance their
learning experiences.
I also need to be aware
of things that could get in the way of flow: not having needed materials at
hand, lack of time, and distractions in the form of other people trying to talk
to us when we are trying to concentrate. Jill Suttie lists the constrains of public schools: rigid curriculum, testing, grades, and time limit as obstacles to flow in classrooms.
Finally, though watching
videos is reportedly not an activity that fosters flow, it is one of the best
ways of gaining knowledge. So, here’s a video which will hopefully help us to learn more about this process called flow: What the Science of Flow can Teach us
About Limitless Performance.
Resources
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi:
Motivating People to Learn. (April 11, 2002). Retrieved from http://www.edutopia.org/mihaly-csikszentmihalyi-motivating-people-learn
Suttie, Jill. (April 16,
2012). Can Schools Help Students Find Flow? Retrieved from http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_schools_help_students_find_flow
Suttie, Jill. (April 7,
2012). Eight Tips for Fostering Flow in the Classroom. Retrieved from
http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/eight_tips_for_fostering_flow_in_the_classroom
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