Attach a lesson, and explain how you would modify the lesson so that it encourages flow for the learner. Please describe why it does not currently meet the guidelines for flow, and what specific changes you will make.
Flow is an “optimal experience”, meaning an individual is so concentrated on the task that their consciousness disappears, and they solely focus on the one task. In our readings this week, we learned the one key factor in every flow activity: “it provides a sense of discovery, a creative feeling of transporting the person into a new reality” and it “pushed the person to higher levels of performance, and led to previously undreamed-of states of consciousness” (Csikszentmihalyi, p.74). My math lesson aimed to teach fifth-grade students how to multiply fractions using area models. Csikszentmihalyi stated that flow activities have to be enjoyable experiences, when analyzing the lesson, it is clear it fails to meet that guideline and many others.
First, there was little intrinsic motivators present. The culminating activity of making a quilt did not relate to the students’ interest, nor took them into a new reality. I will change this by offering students two to three different flow activities to choose from such as a modified quilting activity or writing a song about the content. I will modify the “quilting pieces” activity by adding story elements; therefore, encouraging gamification. Because the instructional strategy I used was so teacher-directed, it broke the guideline of allowing choice. The groups, tasks, and questions were not student-centered. Next time, I will allow the students the choice of which activity to complete and the option to work independently. Allowing the option to work independently would eliminate the distraction of peers which would enable certain students to concentrate. A third guideline that the lesson broke was timelessness. The students complained they would not have enough time to complete the activity in two days; therefore, they were not focused on the task. Extending the due date another day would help students focus on the present.