Works Cited
Howard, J. (1993). Community Service Learning in the Curriculum. In J. Howard, Praxis I: A Faculty Casebook on Community Service-Learning (pp. 101-104). Michigan: The Office of Community Service-Learning Press.
Summary/Analysis:
Author Jeffery Howard put together a “tool-kit” on how to implement community service learning in the curriculum. His tool-kit is aimed towards college faculty members, encouraging them to add a component of community service learning to their currently existing courses. His opening introduction defines community service learning (CSL), explains why CSL is important, and lists principles of good practice in CSL pedagogy. His chapter begins with reasons why CSL is important. “Much of the attention and support for college student involvement in community service has focused on students’ contributions to the community and on the development of students’ lifelong civic responsibility.” (101) Some of his reasons why CSL is so important are:
• community service experiences enhance academic learning
• community service experiences are important sources of knowledge and scholarship
• students are more likely to intentionally learn because they are more accustomed to, and accountable for, learning in academic courses than in co-curricular activities
Howard also notes an important distinction between community service and community service learning. “Where it differs is in its deliberateness about student learning. Though learning necessarily occurs in the act of serving in the community, with community service learning there is an intentional effort made to utilize the community service experience as a learning resource.” (101) He also discusses the three different ways educators typically incorporate CSL, the third option being his preferred way. The three ways discussed are: to have students “self-direct” their own learning and keep a reflective journal, for a campus community service program to provide the structure (i.e. guidebook, seminars, student placement), and to have the CSL intentionally integrated into the academic course. Speaking of the last option, Howard suggests, “When used this way, community service learning may be conceptualized as a pedagogical model that connect meaningful community service experiences with academic course learning.” (101)
Howard continues his opening chapter with his 10 good principles of “good practice in community service learning”. With his 10 principles, he notes that CSL should be driven by student learning, rigorous, structured with learning goals, and strategically selected.
“…the duration of the service must be sufficient to enable the fulfillment of learning goals; a one-time two-hour shift at a hospital will do little for the learning in a course on institutional health care…filling records in a warehouse may be of service to a school district, but it would offer little to stimulate learning in a course on elementary school education.” (103)
An important principle I connected with was the principle to “minimize the distinction between students’ community learning role and the classroom learning role”. In the classroom, students are usually led and guided through various lessons and tasks. In CSL, students are expected to be leaders, especially in regards to their own learning. It’s important to show students how to be self-motivated learners by allowing them lead their own learning in the classroom. “For students to have to alternate between the learning-follower role in the classroom and the learning-leader role in the community not only places yet another learning challenge on students but is inconsistent with good pedagogical principles.” (103)
Evaluate:
I felt that this chapter introduction was nicely written, thorough, and to the point. The author did not write with any excessive educational jargon, leave terms undefined, or fail to elaborate. Each principle was followed with an explanation and corresponding examples. He effectively provided descriptions when needed, yet kept things simple and to the point. With his titles, headings, and efficient organization, I was able to move through the article with ease, yet was still able to absorb pertinent information. One area of concern was the lack of cited work. Many of Howard’s statements would have had more of an impact had they been backed up by professional sources or corresponding research. Much of his advice and information come from a place of personal experience, not from actual cited resources. In one small section, he does mention some sources, but none too specific. “The 10 principles below are derived from a host of sources, more notably the models depicted in this book, my 16 years of involvement with curriculum-based service-learning, and the candid responses of 10 University of Michigan academic leaders as part of the evaluation of our Kellogg Foundation grant.” (102)
Reflect:
This article reminded me of how intricate CSL really is. Many times, teachers add CSL to the curriculum as an extra assignment, rarely connecting it to the learning that is taking place in the classroom. Like project-based learning, many teachers assume that the mere presence of the project equates to student learning. It’s important for me to remember that CSL, like project-based learning, needs to be thoughtfully created and strategically structured. It needs to be meaningful and embedded in current instruction. It should not be a separate activity that is rarely visited. To optimize student learning, CSL needs to have deliberately planned learning goals. One of Howard’s quotes also reminded me that not all students will learn the same way and not all our projects will have the same outcome. Sometimes even our grandest projects/lesson plans will have failures. “In community service learning courses, the variability in community service placements necessarily leads to less certainty and homogeneity in student learning outcomes.” (104) I must be prepared for “uncertainty and variation in student learning outcomes”.
More Quotes:
-“…the student’s grade is for the quality of learning and not for the quality (or quantity of service.” (102)
-“Adding a service component, in fact, may enhance the rigor of a course because, in addition to having to master the academic material, students must also learn how to learn from community experience and merge that learning with academic learning, and these are challenging intellectual activities that are commensurate with rigorous academic standards.” (102)
-“Learning interventions that instigate critical reflection and analysis of service experiences are necessary to enable community learning to be harvested and to serve as an academic learning enhancer.” (103)
-“…if the students are expected to assume a learning-leader role in the community, then room must be made in the classroom for students to assume a learning-leader role; otherwise, students will enter the classroom wearing the inappropriate learning-leader hat.” (104)
-“A shift in instructor role that would be most compatible with these new learning phenomena would move away from information dissemination and move toward learning facilitation and guidance.” (104)
-“If learning in a course is privatized and tacitly understood as for the advancement of the individual, then we are implicitly encouraging a private responsibility mindset; an example would be to assign papers that students write individually and that are read only by the instructor. On the other hand, if the learning is shared amongst the learners for the benefit of corporate learning, then we are implicitly encouraging a group of responsibility mentality; an example would be to share those same students papers with the other students in the class. This conveys to the students that they are resources for one another, and this message contributes to the building of commitment to community and civic duty.” (104)
-“And, it [CSL] provide opportunities for developing real world skills and real world knowledge.” (104)
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
The Concept of Flow
Snyder, C. R., & Lopez, S. (2001). The Concept of Flow. In Handbook of Positive
Psychology (pp. 89-105). USA: Oxford University Press.
This chapter begins with the authors posing a question: “what constitutes a good life?” and goes on with a concise definition of a good life. The authors then share a brief history of the flow concept and its development. They review some of the characteristics of flow experiences and talk about what it means to be “in flow.” Some of the notable characteristics include a strong opportunity for action that matches challenges and skills, has clear goals and offers immediate feedback.
The authors offer a more in-depth history of flow theory and briefly mention studies that validate the conclusions Csikszentmihalyi came to in the early studies on flow. They review how flow has been adopted by industry, sport, and psychology in particular. They then talk about how flow conceives of the person as being part of a larger system/environment, focused on the relationship between challenge and skill.
The authors state that what we choose to give our attention to determines our experience. They go on to state that it is in fact subjective challenges and skills that determine the quality of experience, and talk about how any activity can either produce boredom/anxiety or flow. The article presents a model of consciousness that helps contextualize flow experiences, in that they conceive of subjective experiences as the content of consciousness. The implication is that what we pay attention to determines what we feel, and therefore on some level who we are. The authors talk about consciousness as a tool to free us from the dictates of our genes.
The article enters a lengthy description of the relationship between attention and consciousness, quoting William James and talking about attention as the medium of interaction between individual and environment. The authors connect this to the conditions required to enter flow and briefly describe the relationship between attention and flow. They talk about how the deep attention characteristic of flow requires a kind of editing of consciousness, and how many objects must be ignored or eliminated. They talk about the self being one of those objects.
The article goes on to talk about how flow experiences are so gratifying that individuals continually seek to stay “in flow,” and how that requires increasingly complex challenges and the consequent growth in skills to match them. This is a positive cycle for the individual and encourages growth.
The article goes on to talk about methods used for gathering participant’s experiences. They used interviews, the Experience Sampling Method, and questionnaires. The authors talk about the characteristics of interviews. The authors go on to talk about the questionnaires and describes some useful characteristics of them. The authors explain the Experience Sampling Method in brief and offer some useful ideas on how it might be employed by others. The authors talk about how their early research in flow broke down into three basic channels-- a ‘flow channel’ along which challenges and skills match, boredom, and anxiety.
The authors make an interesting point that a balance between challenge and skill is not enough to create flow; there must be a “skill stretching” to help participants find flow. The authors also talk about apathy, a fourth channel, as a condition opposite to that of flow.
The article then goes on to talk about recent directions in flow research (as of 2002). One of the interesting avenues they discuss is flow research in school contexts. The authors place the challenge-skill relationship in the context of schools. They talk about how much schoolwork falls into a low-skill, high challenge quadrant that is characteristic of anxiety. They talk about how two kinds of experiences might be intrinsically rewarding; relaxation and flow. The authors discuss the evolutionary reasons for these experiences as being intrinsically rewarding and present the opposing (ones conducive to boredom and anxiety) as ones which organisms are programmed to avoid.
The article talks about ESM research done with adolescents and identifies beliefs about work/play that are in place by early adolescence; namely, that even though subjective indicators of motivation were higher in work situations (high-challenge, high-skill), individuals would rather be partaking in leisure activities even though those self-reported indicators of motivation were lower in leisure (low-challenge, high-skill) activities. This is a paradox.
The authors talk in depth about how much time individuals in various countries spend in flow, and identify some interesting differences between the United States and Germany.
The article then turns to interventions that foster flow. The authors talk about interventions being broadly categorized into two categories: environmental and individual. The environmental ones include changes to the situation/workplace/etc to make them more conducive to flow. The individual ones are centered around helping individuals find flow on their own, regardless of external circumstances. They talk about the Key School in Indianapolis, which has structured part of the school day around flow.
The article concludes with a discussion of some areas of research that are yet to be explored in flow theory.
___
“Viewed through the experiential lens of flow, a good life is one that is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.”
“Csiks was struck by the fact that when work on a painting was going well, the artist persisted single-mindedly, disregarding hunger, fatigue, and discomfort-- yet rapidly lost interest in the artistic creation once it had been completed.”
“Flow research and theory had their origin in a desire to understand this phenomenon of intrinsically motivated, or autotelic, activity: activity rewarding in and of itself (auto = self, telos = goal), quite apart from its end product or any intrinsic good that might result from this activity.”
“The conditions of flow include:
Perceived challenges, or opportunities for action, that stretch (neither overmatching or underutilizing existing skills; a sense that one is engaging challenges at a level appropriate to one’s capacities
Clear proximal goals and immediate feedback about the progress that is being made”
“Being ‘in flow’ is the way that some interviewees described the subjective experience of engaging just-manageable challenges by tackling a series of goals, continuously processing feedback about progress, and adjusting action based on this feedback. Under these conditions, experiences seamlessly unfolds from moment to moment, and one enters a subjective state with the following characteristics:
Intense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the present moment
Merging of action and awareness
Loss of reflective self-consciousness
A sense that one can control one’s actions; that is, a sense that one can in principle deal with the situation because one knows how to respond to whatever happens next
Distortion of temporal experience (typically, a sense that time has passed faster than normal)
Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, such that often the end goal is just an excuse for the process”
“Entering flow depends on a balance between perceived action capacities and perceived action opportunities. The balance is intrinsically fragile. If challenge begins to exceed skills, one first becomes vigilant and then anxious; if skills begin to exceed challenges, one first relaxes and then becomes bored...Experiencing anxiety or boredom presses a person to adjust his or her level of skill and/or challenge in order to escape this aversive state and re-enter flow.”
“The original account of the flow state has proven remarkably robust, confirmed through studies of art and science, aesthetic experience, sport, literary writing, and other activities. The experience is the same across lines of culture, class, gender, and age, as well as across lines of activity.”
“Rather than focusing on the person, abstracted from context (i.e., traits, personality types, stable dispositions), flow research has emphasized the dynamic system composed of person and environment, as well as the phenomenology of person-environment interactions.”
“Rock climbers, surgeons, and others who routinely find deep enjoyment in an activity illustrate how an organized set of challenges and a corresponding set of skills result in optimal experience.”
“The effortless absorption experienced by the practiced artist at work on a difficult project always is premised upon earlier mastery of a complex body of skills.”
“Because the direction of the unfolding flow experience is shaped by both person and envi-
ronment, we speak of emergent motivation in an open system: what happens at any moment is responsive to what happened immediately before within the interaction, rather than being dictated by a preexisting intentional structure located within either the person (e.g., a drive) or the environment (e.g., a tradition or script).”
“It is the subjectively perceived opportunities and capacities for action that determine experience.”
“It is the subjec-tively perceived opportunities and capacities for action that determine experience. That is, there is no objectively defined body of information and set of challenges within the stream of the person's experience, but rather the information that is selectively attended to and the opportunities for action that are perceived. Likewise, it is not meaningful to speak about a person’s skills and attentional capacities in objective terms; what enters into lived experience are those capacities for action and those attentional resources and biases (e.g., trait interest) that are engaged by this presently encountered environment.”
“Sports, games, and other flow activities provide goal and feedback structures that make flow more likely. A given individual can find flow in almost any activity, however--working a cash register, ironing clothes, driving a car. Similarly, under certain conditions and depending on an individual’s history with the activity, almost any pursuit-a museum visit, a round of golf, a game of chess-can bore or create anxiety. It is the subjective challenges and subjective skills, not objective ones, that influence the quality of a persons experience.”
“To understand what happens in flow experiences, we need to invoke the more general model of experience, consciousness, and the self that was developed in conjunction with the flow concept (Csikszentmihalyi is: Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). According to this model, people are confronted with an overwheiming amount of information. Consciousness is the complex system that has evolved in humans for seiecting information from this profusion, processing it, and storing it. information appears in consciousness through the selective investment of attention. Once attended to, information enters awareness, the system encompassing all of the processes that take place in consciousness, such as thinking, willing, and feeling about this information (i.e., cognition, motivation, and emotion). The memory system then stores and retrieves the information. We can think of subjective experience as the content of consciousness. The self emerges when consciousness comes into existence and becomes aware of itself as information about the body, subjective states, past memories, and the personal future.”
“Consciousness gives us a measure of control, freeing us from complete subservience to the dictates of genes and culture by representing them in awareness, thereby introducing the al-
ternative of rejecting rather than enacting them. Consciousness thus serves as ‘a clutch between programmed instructions and adaptive behaviors.’”
“Attentional processes shape a person’s experience. The ability to regulate one’s attention is underappreciated. As we have noted elsewhere, “What to pay attention to, how intensely and for how long, are choices that will determine the content of consciousness, and therefore the experiential information available to the organism. Thus, William James was right in claiming, ‘My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind'” [Csikszentmihalyi, 1978, p. 339). The choices made are critical because attention is finite, limiting the amount of information that can be processed in consciousness.”
“This information is the medium of exchange between person and environment, as well as the material out of which the self is formed. Attention thus plays a key role in entering and staying in flow. Entering flow is largely a function of how attention has been focused in the past and how it is focused in the present by the activity's structural conditions. Interests developed in the past will direct attention to specific challenges. Clear proximal goals, immediate feedback, and just-manageable levels of challenge orient the organism, in a unified and coordinated way, so that attention becomes completely absorbed into the stimulus field defined by the activity.”
“Intense concentration, perhaps the defining quality of flow, is just another way of saying that attention is wholly invested in the present exchange. Action and awareness merge in the absence of spare attention that might allow objects beyond the immediate interaction to enter awareness. One such object is the self; the loss of self-consciousness in flow marks the fading of...awareness, as attention is taken up entirely by the challenges being engaged. The passage of time, a basic parameter of experience, becomes distorted because attention is so fully focused elsewhere.”
“Staying in flow requires that attention be held by this limited stimulus field. Apathy, boredom, and anxiety, like flow, are largely functions of how attention is being structured at a given time. In boredom, and even more so in apathy, the low level of challenge relative to skills allows attention to drift. In anxiety, perceived challenges exceed capacities. Particularly in contexts of extrinsic motivation, attention shifts to the self and its shortcomings, creating a self-consciousness that impedes engagement of the challenges.”
“When attention is completely absorbed in the challenges at hand, the individual achieves an ordered state of consciousness. Thoughts, feelings, wishes, and action are in concert. Subjective experience is both differentiated and integrated, the defining qualities of a complex phenomenon. The notion of complexity applies in a second sense, as well. The flow state is intrinsically rewarding and leads the individual to seek to replicate flow experiences; this introduces a selective mechanism into psychological functioning that fosters growth. As people master challenges in an activity, they develop greater levels of skill, and the activity ceases to be as involving as before. In order to continue experiencing flow, they must identify and engage progressively more complex challenges.”
“A flow activity not only provides a set of challenges or opportunities for action but it typically also provides a system of graded challenges, able to accommodate a person's continued and deepening enjoyment as skills grow.”
“We observed that possessing skills and interest in an activity is one precondition for finding flow in it. Descending a staircase is an almost unnoticed means to an end for the person on foot, but it might be a beckoning opportunity for flow to the person on a skateboard. The phenomenon of emergent motivation means we can come to experience a new or previously unengaging activity as intrinsically motivating if we once find flow in it. The moivation to persist in or return to the activity arises out of the experience itself. The flow experience is thus a force for expansion in relation to the individuals goal and interest structure, as well as for growth of skills in relation to an existing interest.”
“The...[autotelic] personality is distinguished by several metaskills or competencies that enable the individual to enter flow and stay in it. These metaskills include a general curiosity and interest in life, persistence, and low self-centeredness, which result in the ability to be motivated by intrinsic rewards.”
“As described, the flow concept emerged out of qualitative interviews about the nature of the experience when a particular activity is going well (Csikszentrnihalyi, 1975/2008). The semi-structured interview provides a holistic, ernic account of the flow experience in real-life context. It was a critical tool in initially identifying and delineating dimensions and dynamics of the flow experience. lt continues to be the approach of choice in studies directed toward rich, integrated description. For example, Jackson (1995) has asked elite athletes to describe a flow experience, distinguishing the characteristics of the state, factors that help and hinder entry into the state, factors that disrupt it, and degree of control over it. Perry (1999) has focused writers on the most recent occasion when they lost track of time while writing, asking them to describe what led up to the experience and how they deal with blocks that keep them out of flow.”
“One-time paper-and-pencil measures have been used when the goal is not to identify but instead to measure dimensions of the How experience and/or differences in its occurrence across contexts or individuals. The Flow Questionnaire presents respondents with several passages descnbing the flow state and asks (a) whether they have had the experience, (b) how often, and (c) in what activity contexts (Csikszentmihalyi &t Csikszentinihalyi, 1988). The quotations used were drawn from the original interviews about flow activities (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000), one each from a dancer, a rock climber, and a composer. Allison and Duncan {l988) presented a sample of working women with an additional composite description of “anti-flow” experience encompassing the aversive states of anxiety, boredom, and apathy.”
“The Flow Scale (Meyers, 1978) elicits an estimate of the frequency with which a person experiences each of ten dimensions of the flow experience (e.g., "I get involved,” "I get direct clues as to how well I am doing”). The instrument has been used as a repeated measure to assess differences across activity contexts in the extent to which the flow dimensions are experienced.”
“The Experience Sampling Method interview and questionnaire approaches are limited by (a) their reliance on retrospective reconstruction of past experience and (b) the requirement that respondents first average across many discrete experiences to compose a picture of the typical subjective experience when things are going well, and then estimate the frequency and/or intensity of this experience. The study of flow has progressed in large part because researchers in the late 1970s developed a tool uniquely suited to the study of situated experience, including optimal experience. Full descriptions of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) can be found elsewhere [e.g., Csikszentmihalyi &c Larson, 1987). Subjects are equipped with paging devices (pagers, programmable watches, or handheld computers); these signal them, at preprogrammed times, to complete a questionnaire describing the moment at which they were paged. The method takes samples from the stream of actual everyday experience. Unlike diaries and time budgets, use of the ESM from the beginning focused on sampling not only activities but also cognitive, emotional, and motivational states, providing a tool for building a systematic phenomenology. Contents of the questionnaire vary depending on the research goals, as do paging schedules and study duration. A quasi-random schedule with data collected for one week has been widely used to provide a representative picture of daily life. ESM studies of flow have focused on the sampled moments when (a) the conditions for flow exist, based on the balance of challenges (or opportunities for action) and skills [abilities to deai with the situation) and/ or (b) the flow state is reported. The latter usually is measured by summing the self-reported levels of concentration, involvement, and enjoyment, which are typically measured on 10-point scales. These three dimensions provide a good proxy for what is in reality a much more complex state of consciousness.”
“The first mapping of the phenomenological landscape in terms of perceived challenges and skills identified three regions of experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000): a flow channel along which challenges and skills matched; a region of boredom, as opportunities for action relative to skills dropped off; and a region of anxiety, as challenges increasingly exceeded capacities for action. This mapping was based on the original accounts of deep flow.”
“Simply balancing challenges and skills did not optimize the quality of experience. As Massimini and his colleagues clarified, inherent in the flow concept is the notion of skill stretching. Activities providing minimal opportunities for action do not lead to flow, regardless of whether the actor experiences a balance between perceived challenge and skill.”
“[We can define] flow as the balance of challenges and skills when both are above average levels for the iridioidual. That is, how is expected to occur when individuals perceive greater opportunities for action than they encounter on average in their daily lives, and have skills adequate to engage them. This shift led to an important remapping of the phenomenological terrain, revealing a fourth state, apathy, associated with low challenges and correspondingly low skills. Experientially, it is a sphere of stagnation and attentional diffusion, the inverse of the flow state.”
“...Researchers therefore have operationalized the disposition as intrinsic motivation in high-challenge, high-skill situations, reflected in low mean scores on the item "I wish to be doing something else” when subjective challenges and skills are both above average.”
“According to the flow model, experiencing flow encourages a person to persist at and return to an activity because of the experiential rewards it promises, and thereby fosters the growth of skills over time.”
“In several studies, flow was associated with commitment and achievement during the high school years (Carli, Delle Fave, & Massimini, 1988; Mayers, 1978; Nalcamura, 1988). More recently, a longitudinal ESM study of talented high school students provided evidence of a relationship between quality of experience and persistence in an activity. Students still committed to their talent area at age 17 were compared with peers who already had disengaged. Four years earlier, those currently still committed had experienced more flow and less anxiety than their peers when engaged in school-related activities; they also were more likely to have identified their talent area as a source of flow (Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993). In a longitudinal study of students talented in mathematics (Heine, 1996), those who experienced flow in the first part of a course performed better in the second half, controlling for their initial abilities and grade point average. Because the self grows through flow experiences, we also might expect time spent in flow to predict self-esteem. Corre-
lational studies with ESM data support this expectation (Adlai-Gail, 1994; Wells, 1988).”
“We speculate that two kinds of experiences might be intrinsically rewarding: one involving conservation of energy (relaxation), the other involving the use of skills to seize ever-greater opportunities {flow]. lt is consistent with current understandings of evolution to suppose that both of these strategies for coping with the environment, one conservative and the other expansive, were selected over time as important components of the human behavioral repertoire, even though they motivate different-in some sense, opposite-behaviors. The two distinctly aversive situations, which organisms are presumably programmed to avoid, are those in which one feels overwhelmed by environmental demands [anxiety] or left with nothing to do.”
“An ESM study of students in grades 6 through 12 revealed that these attitudes toward work and play are already in place by sixth grade and intensify across the adolescent years(Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Motivation in experiences characterized as "work" (academic classes and, later, paid jobs) was lower than in experiences characterized as "play" (e.g., passive activities like TV viewing), even though the worklike experiences were associated with higher concentration, importance to the future, and self-esteem. On a positive note, 10% of the time sampled, students reported engaging in extra-curricular activities and pursuing art, games, and hobbies outside of formal settings. They labeled these activities as simultaneously worklike and playlike and experienced them as both important and enjoyable. ln addition, both "play" and “work” were more positive than experiences that were labeled neither worklike nor playlike (e. g., maintenance activities like chores).”
“Individuals vary in the time spent in flow. Over one third of those surveyed in UB. and German polls (responding to slightly different questions) estimated that they rarely or never experienced involvement so intense that they lose track of time (42% of Americans, 35% of Germans), Whereas about one fifth (16% of Americans, 23% of Germans) reported having such experiences daily (Gallup Poll, 1998; Noelle-Neumann, 1995), Adopting a different metric, Lelfevre (1988) found that a sample of adult workers included about 40% who were most motivated in high-challenge, high-skill situations and about 40% who were most motivated in low-challenge, low-skill situations; the fomer might be called autotelic individuals. Mea-
suring autotelic personality similarly with young adults, Hektner (1996) confirmed that autotelics were least happy and motivated in apathy (low-challenge, low-skill) situations, whereas nonautotelics (those least motivated in high-challenge, high-skill situations) did not find the apathy condition aversive. Individual differences thus clearly exist.”
“Flow principles have been translated into practice in a variety of contexts. Two types of intervention can be distinguished: (a] those seeking to shape activity structures and environments so that they foster flow or obstruct it less and b] those attempting to assist individuals in finding flow.”
“Educational settings present an opportunity to apply the results of flow research most di-
rectly. One experiment deserving mention is the 15-year-old Key School in Indianapolis, where the goal is to foster flow by influencing both environment and individual {Whalen, 1999). This public elementary and middle school seeks to (a) create a learning environment that fosters flow experiences and (lv) help students form interests and develop the capacity and propensity to experience flow. In the Flow Activities Center, students have regular opportunities to actively choose and engage in activities related to their own interests and then pursue these activities without imposed demands or pacing. The teacher supports chiidren’s selection and enjoyment of activities that challenge and stretch them and helps the students to identify new chailenges as their capacities grow. Based on observations of the Flow Activities Center and conversations with teachers, Whalen concluded that the center is effectively fostering “serious play” (Csikszentrnihalyi et al., 1993] and that it has introduced values of flow and intrinsic motivation into the life of the school more generally.”
Psychology (pp. 89-105). USA: Oxford University Press.
This chapter begins with the authors posing a question: “what constitutes a good life?” and goes on with a concise definition of a good life. The authors then share a brief history of the flow concept and its development. They review some of the characteristics of flow experiences and talk about what it means to be “in flow.” Some of the notable characteristics include a strong opportunity for action that matches challenges and skills, has clear goals and offers immediate feedback.
The authors offer a more in-depth history of flow theory and briefly mention studies that validate the conclusions Csikszentmihalyi came to in the early studies on flow. They review how flow has been adopted by industry, sport, and psychology in particular. They then talk about how flow conceives of the person as being part of a larger system/environment, focused on the relationship between challenge and skill.
The authors state that what we choose to give our attention to determines our experience. They go on to state that it is in fact subjective challenges and skills that determine the quality of experience, and talk about how any activity can either produce boredom/anxiety or flow. The article presents a model of consciousness that helps contextualize flow experiences, in that they conceive of subjective experiences as the content of consciousness. The implication is that what we pay attention to determines what we feel, and therefore on some level who we are. The authors talk about consciousness as a tool to free us from the dictates of our genes.
The article enters a lengthy description of the relationship between attention and consciousness, quoting William James and talking about attention as the medium of interaction between individual and environment. The authors connect this to the conditions required to enter flow and briefly describe the relationship between attention and flow. They talk about how the deep attention characteristic of flow requires a kind of editing of consciousness, and how many objects must be ignored or eliminated. They talk about the self being one of those objects.
The article goes on to talk about how flow experiences are so gratifying that individuals continually seek to stay “in flow,” and how that requires increasingly complex challenges and the consequent growth in skills to match them. This is a positive cycle for the individual and encourages growth.
The article goes on to talk about methods used for gathering participant’s experiences. They used interviews, the Experience Sampling Method, and questionnaires. The authors talk about the characteristics of interviews. The authors go on to talk about the questionnaires and describes some useful characteristics of them. The authors explain the Experience Sampling Method in brief and offer some useful ideas on how it might be employed by others. The authors talk about how their early research in flow broke down into three basic channels-- a ‘flow channel’ along which challenges and skills match, boredom, and anxiety.
The authors make an interesting point that a balance between challenge and skill is not enough to create flow; there must be a “skill stretching” to help participants find flow. The authors also talk about apathy, a fourth channel, as a condition opposite to that of flow.
The article then goes on to talk about recent directions in flow research (as of 2002). One of the interesting avenues they discuss is flow research in school contexts. The authors place the challenge-skill relationship in the context of schools. They talk about how much schoolwork falls into a low-skill, high challenge quadrant that is characteristic of anxiety. They talk about how two kinds of experiences might be intrinsically rewarding; relaxation and flow. The authors discuss the evolutionary reasons for these experiences as being intrinsically rewarding and present the opposing (ones conducive to boredom and anxiety) as ones which organisms are programmed to avoid.
The article talks about ESM research done with adolescents and identifies beliefs about work/play that are in place by early adolescence; namely, that even though subjective indicators of motivation were higher in work situations (high-challenge, high-skill), individuals would rather be partaking in leisure activities even though those self-reported indicators of motivation were lower in leisure (low-challenge, high-skill) activities. This is a paradox.
The authors talk in depth about how much time individuals in various countries spend in flow, and identify some interesting differences between the United States and Germany.
The article then turns to interventions that foster flow. The authors talk about interventions being broadly categorized into two categories: environmental and individual. The environmental ones include changes to the situation/workplace/etc to make them more conducive to flow. The individual ones are centered around helping individuals find flow on their own, regardless of external circumstances. They talk about the Key School in Indianapolis, which has structured part of the school day around flow.
The article concludes with a discussion of some areas of research that are yet to be explored in flow theory.
___
“Viewed through the experiential lens of flow, a good life is one that is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.”
“Csiks was struck by the fact that when work on a painting was going well, the artist persisted single-mindedly, disregarding hunger, fatigue, and discomfort-- yet rapidly lost interest in the artistic creation once it had been completed.”
“Flow research and theory had their origin in a desire to understand this phenomenon of intrinsically motivated, or autotelic, activity: activity rewarding in and of itself (auto = self, telos = goal), quite apart from its end product or any intrinsic good that might result from this activity.”
“The conditions of flow include:
Perceived challenges, or opportunities for action, that stretch (neither overmatching or underutilizing existing skills; a sense that one is engaging challenges at a level appropriate to one’s capacities
Clear proximal goals and immediate feedback about the progress that is being made”
“Being ‘in flow’ is the way that some interviewees described the subjective experience of engaging just-manageable challenges by tackling a series of goals, continuously processing feedback about progress, and adjusting action based on this feedback. Under these conditions, experiences seamlessly unfolds from moment to moment, and one enters a subjective state with the following characteristics:
Intense and focused concentration on what one is doing in the present moment
Merging of action and awareness
Loss of reflective self-consciousness
A sense that one can control one’s actions; that is, a sense that one can in principle deal with the situation because one knows how to respond to whatever happens next
Distortion of temporal experience (typically, a sense that time has passed faster than normal)
Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, such that often the end goal is just an excuse for the process”
“Entering flow depends on a balance between perceived action capacities and perceived action opportunities. The balance is intrinsically fragile. If challenge begins to exceed skills, one first becomes vigilant and then anxious; if skills begin to exceed challenges, one first relaxes and then becomes bored...Experiencing anxiety or boredom presses a person to adjust his or her level of skill and/or challenge in order to escape this aversive state and re-enter flow.”
“The original account of the flow state has proven remarkably robust, confirmed through studies of art and science, aesthetic experience, sport, literary writing, and other activities. The experience is the same across lines of culture, class, gender, and age, as well as across lines of activity.”
“Rather than focusing on the person, abstracted from context (i.e., traits, personality types, stable dispositions), flow research has emphasized the dynamic system composed of person and environment, as well as the phenomenology of person-environment interactions.”
“Rock climbers, surgeons, and others who routinely find deep enjoyment in an activity illustrate how an organized set of challenges and a corresponding set of skills result in optimal experience.”
“The effortless absorption experienced by the practiced artist at work on a difficult project always is premised upon earlier mastery of a complex body of skills.”
“Because the direction of the unfolding flow experience is shaped by both person and envi-
ronment, we speak of emergent motivation in an open system: what happens at any moment is responsive to what happened immediately before within the interaction, rather than being dictated by a preexisting intentional structure located within either the person (e.g., a drive) or the environment (e.g., a tradition or script).”
“It is the subjectively perceived opportunities and capacities for action that determine experience.”
“It is the subjec-tively perceived opportunities and capacities for action that determine experience. That is, there is no objectively defined body of information and set of challenges within the stream of the person's experience, but rather the information that is selectively attended to and the opportunities for action that are perceived. Likewise, it is not meaningful to speak about a person’s skills and attentional capacities in objective terms; what enters into lived experience are those capacities for action and those attentional resources and biases (e.g., trait interest) that are engaged by this presently encountered environment.”
“Sports, games, and other flow activities provide goal and feedback structures that make flow more likely. A given individual can find flow in almost any activity, however--working a cash register, ironing clothes, driving a car. Similarly, under certain conditions and depending on an individual’s history with the activity, almost any pursuit-a museum visit, a round of golf, a game of chess-can bore or create anxiety. It is the subjective challenges and subjective skills, not objective ones, that influence the quality of a persons experience.”
“To understand what happens in flow experiences, we need to invoke the more general model of experience, consciousness, and the self that was developed in conjunction with the flow concept (Csikszentmihalyi is: Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). According to this model, people are confronted with an overwheiming amount of information. Consciousness is the complex system that has evolved in humans for seiecting information from this profusion, processing it, and storing it. information appears in consciousness through the selective investment of attention. Once attended to, information enters awareness, the system encompassing all of the processes that take place in consciousness, such as thinking, willing, and feeling about this information (i.e., cognition, motivation, and emotion). The memory system then stores and retrieves the information. We can think of subjective experience as the content of consciousness. The self emerges when consciousness comes into existence and becomes aware of itself as information about the body, subjective states, past memories, and the personal future.”
“Consciousness gives us a measure of control, freeing us from complete subservience to the dictates of genes and culture by representing them in awareness, thereby introducing the al-
ternative of rejecting rather than enacting them. Consciousness thus serves as ‘a clutch between programmed instructions and adaptive behaviors.’”
“Attentional processes shape a person’s experience. The ability to regulate one’s attention is underappreciated. As we have noted elsewhere, “What to pay attention to, how intensely and for how long, are choices that will determine the content of consciousness, and therefore the experiential information available to the organism. Thus, William James was right in claiming, ‘My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items which I notice shape my mind'” [Csikszentmihalyi, 1978, p. 339). The choices made are critical because attention is finite, limiting the amount of information that can be processed in consciousness.”
“This information is the medium of exchange between person and environment, as well as the material out of which the self is formed. Attention thus plays a key role in entering and staying in flow. Entering flow is largely a function of how attention has been focused in the past and how it is focused in the present by the activity's structural conditions. Interests developed in the past will direct attention to specific challenges. Clear proximal goals, immediate feedback, and just-manageable levels of challenge orient the organism, in a unified and coordinated way, so that attention becomes completely absorbed into the stimulus field defined by the activity.”
“Intense concentration, perhaps the defining quality of flow, is just another way of saying that attention is wholly invested in the present exchange. Action and awareness merge in the absence of spare attention that might allow objects beyond the immediate interaction to enter awareness. One such object is the self; the loss of self-consciousness in flow marks the fading of...awareness, as attention is taken up entirely by the challenges being engaged. The passage of time, a basic parameter of experience, becomes distorted because attention is so fully focused elsewhere.”
“Staying in flow requires that attention be held by this limited stimulus field. Apathy, boredom, and anxiety, like flow, are largely functions of how attention is being structured at a given time. In boredom, and even more so in apathy, the low level of challenge relative to skills allows attention to drift. In anxiety, perceived challenges exceed capacities. Particularly in contexts of extrinsic motivation, attention shifts to the self and its shortcomings, creating a self-consciousness that impedes engagement of the challenges.”
“When attention is completely absorbed in the challenges at hand, the individual achieves an ordered state of consciousness. Thoughts, feelings, wishes, and action are in concert. Subjective experience is both differentiated and integrated, the defining qualities of a complex phenomenon. The notion of complexity applies in a second sense, as well. The flow state is intrinsically rewarding and leads the individual to seek to replicate flow experiences; this introduces a selective mechanism into psychological functioning that fosters growth. As people master challenges in an activity, they develop greater levels of skill, and the activity ceases to be as involving as before. In order to continue experiencing flow, they must identify and engage progressively more complex challenges.”
“A flow activity not only provides a set of challenges or opportunities for action but it typically also provides a system of graded challenges, able to accommodate a person's continued and deepening enjoyment as skills grow.”
“We observed that possessing skills and interest in an activity is one precondition for finding flow in it. Descending a staircase is an almost unnoticed means to an end for the person on foot, but it might be a beckoning opportunity for flow to the person on a skateboard. The phenomenon of emergent motivation means we can come to experience a new or previously unengaging activity as intrinsically motivating if we once find flow in it. The moivation to persist in or return to the activity arises out of the experience itself. The flow experience is thus a force for expansion in relation to the individuals goal and interest structure, as well as for growth of skills in relation to an existing interest.”
“The...[autotelic] personality is distinguished by several metaskills or competencies that enable the individual to enter flow and stay in it. These metaskills include a general curiosity and interest in life, persistence, and low self-centeredness, which result in the ability to be motivated by intrinsic rewards.”
“As described, the flow concept emerged out of qualitative interviews about the nature of the experience when a particular activity is going well (Csikszentrnihalyi, 1975/2008). The semi-structured interview provides a holistic, ernic account of the flow experience in real-life context. It was a critical tool in initially identifying and delineating dimensions and dynamics of the flow experience. lt continues to be the approach of choice in studies directed toward rich, integrated description. For example, Jackson (1995) has asked elite athletes to describe a flow experience, distinguishing the characteristics of the state, factors that help and hinder entry into the state, factors that disrupt it, and degree of control over it. Perry (1999) has focused writers on the most recent occasion when they lost track of time while writing, asking them to describe what led up to the experience and how they deal with blocks that keep them out of flow.”
“One-time paper-and-pencil measures have been used when the goal is not to identify but instead to measure dimensions of the How experience and/or differences in its occurrence across contexts or individuals. The Flow Questionnaire presents respondents with several passages descnbing the flow state and asks (a) whether they have had the experience, (b) how often, and (c) in what activity contexts (Csikszentmihalyi &t Csikszentinihalyi, 1988). The quotations used were drawn from the original interviews about flow activities (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000), one each from a dancer, a rock climber, and a composer. Allison and Duncan {l988) presented a sample of working women with an additional composite description of “anti-flow” experience encompassing the aversive states of anxiety, boredom, and apathy.”
“The Flow Scale (Meyers, 1978) elicits an estimate of the frequency with which a person experiences each of ten dimensions of the flow experience (e.g., "I get involved,” "I get direct clues as to how well I am doing”). The instrument has been used as a repeated measure to assess differences across activity contexts in the extent to which the flow dimensions are experienced.”
“The Experience Sampling Method interview and questionnaire approaches are limited by (a) their reliance on retrospective reconstruction of past experience and (b) the requirement that respondents first average across many discrete experiences to compose a picture of the typical subjective experience when things are going well, and then estimate the frequency and/or intensity of this experience. The study of flow has progressed in large part because researchers in the late 1970s developed a tool uniquely suited to the study of situated experience, including optimal experience. Full descriptions of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) can be found elsewhere [e.g., Csikszentmihalyi &c Larson, 1987). Subjects are equipped with paging devices (pagers, programmable watches, or handheld computers); these signal them, at preprogrammed times, to complete a questionnaire describing the moment at which they were paged. The method takes samples from the stream of actual everyday experience. Unlike diaries and time budgets, use of the ESM from the beginning focused on sampling not only activities but also cognitive, emotional, and motivational states, providing a tool for building a systematic phenomenology. Contents of the questionnaire vary depending on the research goals, as do paging schedules and study duration. A quasi-random schedule with data collected for one week has been widely used to provide a representative picture of daily life. ESM studies of flow have focused on the sampled moments when (a) the conditions for flow exist, based on the balance of challenges (or opportunities for action) and skills [abilities to deai with the situation) and/ or (b) the flow state is reported. The latter usually is measured by summing the self-reported levels of concentration, involvement, and enjoyment, which are typically measured on 10-point scales. These three dimensions provide a good proxy for what is in reality a much more complex state of consciousness.”
“The first mapping of the phenomenological landscape in terms of perceived challenges and skills identified three regions of experience (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975/2000): a flow channel along which challenges and skills matched; a region of boredom, as opportunities for action relative to skills dropped off; and a region of anxiety, as challenges increasingly exceeded capacities for action. This mapping was based on the original accounts of deep flow.”
“Simply balancing challenges and skills did not optimize the quality of experience. As Massimini and his colleagues clarified, inherent in the flow concept is the notion of skill stretching. Activities providing minimal opportunities for action do not lead to flow, regardless of whether the actor experiences a balance between perceived challenge and skill.”
“[We can define] flow as the balance of challenges and skills when both are above average levels for the iridioidual. That is, how is expected to occur when individuals perceive greater opportunities for action than they encounter on average in their daily lives, and have skills adequate to engage them. This shift led to an important remapping of the phenomenological terrain, revealing a fourth state, apathy, associated with low challenges and correspondingly low skills. Experientially, it is a sphere of stagnation and attentional diffusion, the inverse of the flow state.”
“...Researchers therefore have operationalized the disposition as intrinsic motivation in high-challenge, high-skill situations, reflected in low mean scores on the item "I wish to be doing something else” when subjective challenges and skills are both above average.”
“According to the flow model, experiencing flow encourages a person to persist at and return to an activity because of the experiential rewards it promises, and thereby fosters the growth of skills over time.”
“In several studies, flow was associated with commitment and achievement during the high school years (Carli, Delle Fave, & Massimini, 1988; Mayers, 1978; Nalcamura, 1988). More recently, a longitudinal ESM study of talented high school students provided evidence of a relationship between quality of experience and persistence in an activity. Students still committed to their talent area at age 17 were compared with peers who already had disengaged. Four years earlier, those currently still committed had experienced more flow and less anxiety than their peers when engaged in school-related activities; they also were more likely to have identified their talent area as a source of flow (Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993). In a longitudinal study of students talented in mathematics (Heine, 1996), those who experienced flow in the first part of a course performed better in the second half, controlling for their initial abilities and grade point average. Because the self grows through flow experiences, we also might expect time spent in flow to predict self-esteem. Corre-
lational studies with ESM data support this expectation (Adlai-Gail, 1994; Wells, 1988).”
“We speculate that two kinds of experiences might be intrinsically rewarding: one involving conservation of energy (relaxation), the other involving the use of skills to seize ever-greater opportunities {flow]. lt is consistent with current understandings of evolution to suppose that both of these strategies for coping with the environment, one conservative and the other expansive, were selected over time as important components of the human behavioral repertoire, even though they motivate different-in some sense, opposite-behaviors. The two distinctly aversive situations, which organisms are presumably programmed to avoid, are those in which one feels overwhelmed by environmental demands [anxiety] or left with nothing to do.”
“An ESM study of students in grades 6 through 12 revealed that these attitudes toward work and play are already in place by sixth grade and intensify across the adolescent years(Csikszentmihalyi, 1997). Motivation in experiences characterized as "work" (academic classes and, later, paid jobs) was lower than in experiences characterized as "play" (e.g., passive activities like TV viewing), even though the worklike experiences were associated with higher concentration, importance to the future, and self-esteem. On a positive note, 10% of the time sampled, students reported engaging in extra-curricular activities and pursuing art, games, and hobbies outside of formal settings. They labeled these activities as simultaneously worklike and playlike and experienced them as both important and enjoyable. ln addition, both "play" and “work” were more positive than experiences that were labeled neither worklike nor playlike (e. g., maintenance activities like chores).”
“Individuals vary in the time spent in flow. Over one third of those surveyed in UB. and German polls (responding to slightly different questions) estimated that they rarely or never experienced involvement so intense that they lose track of time (42% of Americans, 35% of Germans), Whereas about one fifth (16% of Americans, 23% of Germans) reported having such experiences daily (Gallup Poll, 1998; Noelle-Neumann, 1995), Adopting a different metric, Lelfevre (1988) found that a sample of adult workers included about 40% who were most motivated in high-challenge, high-skill situations and about 40% who were most motivated in low-challenge, low-skill situations; the fomer might be called autotelic individuals. Mea-
suring autotelic personality similarly with young adults, Hektner (1996) confirmed that autotelics were least happy and motivated in apathy (low-challenge, low-skill) situations, whereas nonautotelics (those least motivated in high-challenge, high-skill situations) did not find the apathy condition aversive. Individual differences thus clearly exist.”
“Flow principles have been translated into practice in a variety of contexts. Two types of intervention can be distinguished: (a] those seeking to shape activity structures and environments so that they foster flow or obstruct it less and b] those attempting to assist individuals in finding flow.”
“Educational settings present an opportunity to apply the results of flow research most di-
rectly. One experiment deserving mention is the 15-year-old Key School in Indianapolis, where the goal is to foster flow by influencing both environment and individual {Whalen, 1999). This public elementary and middle school seeks to (a) create a learning environment that fosters flow experiences and (lv) help students form interests and develop the capacity and propensity to experience flow. In the Flow Activities Center, students have regular opportunities to actively choose and engage in activities related to their own interests and then pursue these activities without imposed demands or pacing. The teacher supports chiidren’s selection and enjoyment of activities that challenge and stretch them and helps the students to identify new chailenges as their capacities grow. Based on observations of the Flow Activities Center and conversations with teachers, Whalen concluded that the center is effectively fostering “serious play” (Csikszentrnihalyi et al., 1993] and that it has introduced values of flow and intrinsic motivation into the life of the school more generally.”
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
An Exploratory Model of Play
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & Bennett, S. (1971, February). An Exploratory Model of
Play. American Anthropologist, 73(1), 45-58.
The article begins with a quotation by the authors describing and defining play in terms of a relationship between challenge and skill. They go on to distinguish play from anxiety in that in anxiety, challenges exceed skill, and boredom, in which skill exceeds the challenges.
The authors continue with a discussion of play and talk about how play is grounded in the concept of possibility. This is an intriguing early view of flow and precedes the formulation of flow theory by several decades. The authors talk about possibilities and compare play to everyday life. The authors state that much of everyday life is consumed by worry, and talk about how many people experience a problem of how they will accomplish their projects within the boundaries they must respect.
Interestingly, the authors define both anxiety and boredom as being on a continuum of possiblities and actions. This formulation has considerable resonance for teaching.
The authors then go on to define play in more detail, as the interplay between action and environment, where feedback provides possibilities for action. This again has considerable implications for education.
Amazingly, the authors present one of the conditions of the flow experience in an earlier form-- they talk about the lack of self-consciousness associated with these experiences. They go on to cite an accomplished rock climber who comments on this lack of self-consciousness. The authors then go on to talk about how games arise out of merged awareness and action. They go on to define games as having three characteristics: first, a limitation of the realm of stimuli players must attend to; second, by limiting the choices of the player through rules; and third, by limiting the time in which the player has to act, by clearly setting starting/ending times. The authors postulate that these conditions lead to a player abandoning him/herself to the game and allowing the player to act without self-consciousness.
The authors then undertake an exploration of different forms of games, including games of chance, games of strategy, and games of physical skill. This is an extensive portion of this article.
Afterward, the authors discuss the implications of their analysis of games and the structure of play, and they talk about play as a set of limitations that shield players from the anxiety of everyday life. This provides a theoretical background for the loss of self that occurs in play and in flow experiences as well.
Discussion of Value:
For educators interested in flow theory, play, motivation, and the role of the self in all these experiences, this is an immensely valuable article. First, for those interested in flow theory, this early work in Csikszentmihalyi’s career provides tremendous insight into how flow theory developed and the theoretical underpinnings of his later work. As accessible as flow theory is, this is both a lighter and more arcane/complex work. It is, however, fascinating and contains many implications for teaching in terms of our conception of work, the way we conceive of boredom and anxiety, and why play might just be the most important thing we can offer students in our classes.
__
“Play is defined as a state of experience in which the actor's ability to act matches the requirements for action in his environment. It differs from anxiety, in which the requirements outnumber the ability, and from boredom, in which the require- ments are too few for the ability level of the actor.”
“Play is going. It is what happensafter all the decisions are made-when "let's go" is the last thing one remembers.Play is action generatingaction: a unifiedexperienceflow- ing from one moment to the next in contra- distinction to our otherwise disjoint "every- day" experiences.”
““Play is grounded in the concept of possi- bility. We assume that in general individuals have the ability to assess what actions are humanly possible within the bounds of a given situation. The point is that in "everyday," non-play situations the number of things that can happen is always more than the one series of events that does happen. Of all the possibilities for action that we perceive, only a few become ongoing projects: we can only do "one thing at a time."”
“The question becomes one of choice: "which of these possible actions will I attempt to turn into my action?" Our "everyday" lives consist of matching a large stock of projects we know we can actualize with the possibilities that can be seen in the situation at hand. Almost everyone is sure that he can speak or eat or move about. Every day we depend on the control of people over a large assortment of projects-a control which includes the ability to synchronize "starts"and "stops" with their social environment to produce interaction.”
“This operational volition or decision for immediate action will be referred to as the "voluntary fiat.””
“For the most part the human condition can be described as the experience of "worry." A multitude of boundaries constrain our projects at every moment, and talking about what to do and how to do it crowds the time for doing it to the extent that a full consideration of the potential frustrations of any project leads to hopeless anxiety.”
“At other times our relationship with the environment tends to produce another kind of experience: boredom. A wearing tedium or dullness can pervade action that has become routinized, making it hard to tell present action from past actions, since monotony lacks change or variety. Boredom is experienced when the projects available to the actor...far outnumber the assessed possibilities in a situation. The fewer opportunities for action we perceive, the more bored we become.”
“Now we are able to conceptualize the experience of play. When there is a "balanced" state of affairs, when we can make each action by voluntary fiat, but still do not exhaust possible actions, the necessary conditions for play are established.The play experience is invoked when our action "resonates"with the environment; when "feedback" provides sufficient possibilities for an uninterrupted flow of action.”
“Awareness merges with action,and a play episode is begun. A most outstanding quality of this state of ambience or participation with the environment is the actor's lack of ananalytic or"outside"viewpoint on his conduct: a lack of self-consciousness.”
“That this state of oneness with one's action precludes anxiety is well illustrated by a statement of Chris Bonington, one of the best-known contemporary British rock- climbers (Unsworth1969a [our italics]).
"At the start of any big climb I feel afraid, dread the discomfort and danger I shall have to undergo. It's like standing on the edge of a cold swimming-pool trying to nerve yourself to take the plunge; yet once in, it's not nearly as bad as you have feared; in fact it's enjoyable. Once I start climbing, all my misgivings are forgotten. The very harshness of the surroundings, the treacherous layer of verglas covering every hold, even the high- pitched whine of falling stones, all help to build up the tension and excitement that are ingredients of mountaineering."’”
“If one accepts the postulate that the essential aspect of the play-experience is a state of merged awareness and action, then the requirementof a good game, that is of an institutionalized play-form, is that it should allow the player to sustain this ex- perience throughout a relatively long span of time.”
“In order to accomplish this, games must limit by convention the realm of stimuli that the player need pay attention to: by establishing a playing field or board, by defining what are the relevant objects of the game. The game also has to limit the choices of action open to the player: by establishing the rules of the game. And finally the game has to limit the time within which the player can act: by clearly setting the starting and finishing times of the process. Within this limited spatio-temporal unit the player can abandon himself to the process, acting without self-consciousness.”
“We have been most concerned with the concept of "self": of how it is forgotten when action is plentiful, and perhaps of what the experience of "self- lessness" is like. In addition we have, for this brief introduction to the play concept, attempted to define play without developing a complicated set of theoretical under-pinnings and special terms, but relying heavily on examples of activities people engage in as play. It is our contention that the full theoretical significance of the "self" concept does not unfold until the possibility of playing is considered.”
“Any concept of "self" relies on the ability of an actor to share perspectives of "others" who see him. Interaction is grounded in the "self" as integrator of one person's actions with another, and therefore as the continual negotiator of social reality.”
“But in the play situa- tion social reality is not up for negotiation: the actors are absolutely bound to a limited set of actions and to identical accounts of those actions; play is a social system with no deviance. Given a manageable number of options for action and an unambiguous symbol system, no viewpoint other than the player's viewpoint is necessary-the social self becomes superfluous, and the player can
merge with the process in a state of monistic awareness. This is our explanation of the
play experience-with one added feature: play stops when it becomes boredom.”
“play emerges out of the context of everyday life whenever the latter becomes too worrisome, and slips back into everyday life whenever the play experience becomes boring. The play experience is constructed by means of negotiation involving awareness of the dualistic social skills of language, categorization, and roles.”
“We have the ability to flip back and forth from worry to play to boredom, and sometimes these changes are very swift.”
“What is important here for social theory is that a negotiable reality which is subject to varying interpretations and requires a "self" (everyday life) coexists with a voluntarily structured reality with no referential require- ments (play). In other words, the traditional theoretical conflict between individual and society (or monism and dualism) is irrelevant for a man at play. As a pitcher steps up to the plate, it is useless to ask him for an opinion on the Vietnam war. His world at this point is limited to the batting box, and the whole network of social pressures and expectations has fallen away.”
“To understand play is important precisely because it combines in an experiential unity both social constraints and spontaneous behavior.”
“They are questions of the utmost seriousness in that they deal with one of the most rewarding and creative experiences that man is capable of feeling.”
Play. American Anthropologist, 73(1), 45-58.
The article begins with a quotation by the authors describing and defining play in terms of a relationship between challenge and skill. They go on to distinguish play from anxiety in that in anxiety, challenges exceed skill, and boredom, in which skill exceeds the challenges.
The authors continue with a discussion of play and talk about how play is grounded in the concept of possibility. This is an intriguing early view of flow and precedes the formulation of flow theory by several decades. The authors talk about possibilities and compare play to everyday life. The authors state that much of everyday life is consumed by worry, and talk about how many people experience a problem of how they will accomplish their projects within the boundaries they must respect.
Interestingly, the authors define both anxiety and boredom as being on a continuum of possiblities and actions. This formulation has considerable resonance for teaching.
The authors then go on to define play in more detail, as the interplay between action and environment, where feedback provides possibilities for action. This again has considerable implications for education.
Amazingly, the authors present one of the conditions of the flow experience in an earlier form-- they talk about the lack of self-consciousness associated with these experiences. They go on to cite an accomplished rock climber who comments on this lack of self-consciousness. The authors then go on to talk about how games arise out of merged awareness and action. They go on to define games as having three characteristics: first, a limitation of the realm of stimuli players must attend to; second, by limiting the choices of the player through rules; and third, by limiting the time in which the player has to act, by clearly setting starting/ending times. The authors postulate that these conditions lead to a player abandoning him/herself to the game and allowing the player to act without self-consciousness.
The authors then undertake an exploration of different forms of games, including games of chance, games of strategy, and games of physical skill. This is an extensive portion of this article.
Afterward, the authors discuss the implications of their analysis of games and the structure of play, and they talk about play as a set of limitations that shield players from the anxiety of everyday life. This provides a theoretical background for the loss of self that occurs in play and in flow experiences as well.
Discussion of Value:
For educators interested in flow theory, play, motivation, and the role of the self in all these experiences, this is an immensely valuable article. First, for those interested in flow theory, this early work in Csikszentmihalyi’s career provides tremendous insight into how flow theory developed and the theoretical underpinnings of his later work. As accessible as flow theory is, this is both a lighter and more arcane/complex work. It is, however, fascinating and contains many implications for teaching in terms of our conception of work, the way we conceive of boredom and anxiety, and why play might just be the most important thing we can offer students in our classes.
__
“Play is defined as a state of experience in which the actor's ability to act matches the requirements for action in his environment. It differs from anxiety, in which the requirements outnumber the ability, and from boredom, in which the require- ments are too few for the ability level of the actor.”
“Play is going. It is what happensafter all the decisions are made-when "let's go" is the last thing one remembers.Play is action generatingaction: a unifiedexperienceflow- ing from one moment to the next in contra- distinction to our otherwise disjoint "every- day" experiences.”
““Play is grounded in the concept of possi- bility. We assume that in general individuals have the ability to assess what actions are humanly possible within the bounds of a given situation. The point is that in "everyday," non-play situations the number of things that can happen is always more than the one series of events that does happen. Of all the possibilities for action that we perceive, only a few become ongoing projects: we can only do "one thing at a time."”
“The question becomes one of choice: "which of these possible actions will I attempt to turn into my action?" Our "everyday" lives consist of matching a large stock of projects we know we can actualize with the possibilities that can be seen in the situation at hand. Almost everyone is sure that he can speak or eat or move about. Every day we depend on the control of people over a large assortment of projects-a control which includes the ability to synchronize "starts"and "stops" with their social environment to produce interaction.”
“This operational volition or decision for immediate action will be referred to as the "voluntary fiat.””
“For the most part the human condition can be described as the experience of "worry." A multitude of boundaries constrain our projects at every moment, and talking about what to do and how to do it crowds the time for doing it to the extent that a full consideration of the potential frustrations of any project leads to hopeless anxiety.”
“At other times our relationship with the environment tends to produce another kind of experience: boredom. A wearing tedium or dullness can pervade action that has become routinized, making it hard to tell present action from past actions, since monotony lacks change or variety. Boredom is experienced when the projects available to the actor...far outnumber the assessed possibilities in a situation. The fewer opportunities for action we perceive, the more bored we become.”
“Now we are able to conceptualize the experience of play. When there is a "balanced" state of affairs, when we can make each action by voluntary fiat, but still do not exhaust possible actions, the necessary conditions for play are established.The play experience is invoked when our action "resonates"with the environment; when "feedback" provides sufficient possibilities for an uninterrupted flow of action.”
“Awareness merges with action,and a play episode is begun. A most outstanding quality of this state of ambience or participation with the environment is the actor's lack of ananalytic or"outside"viewpoint on his conduct: a lack of self-consciousness.”
“That this state of oneness with one's action precludes anxiety is well illustrated by a statement of Chris Bonington, one of the best-known contemporary British rock- climbers (Unsworth1969a [our italics]).
"At the start of any big climb I feel afraid, dread the discomfort and danger I shall have to undergo. It's like standing on the edge of a cold swimming-pool trying to nerve yourself to take the plunge; yet once in, it's not nearly as bad as you have feared; in fact it's enjoyable. Once I start climbing, all my misgivings are forgotten. The very harshness of the surroundings, the treacherous layer of verglas covering every hold, even the high- pitched whine of falling stones, all help to build up the tension and excitement that are ingredients of mountaineering."’”
“If one accepts the postulate that the essential aspect of the play-experience is a state of merged awareness and action, then the requirementof a good game, that is of an institutionalized play-form, is that it should allow the player to sustain this ex- perience throughout a relatively long span of time.”
“In order to accomplish this, games must limit by convention the realm of stimuli that the player need pay attention to: by establishing a playing field or board, by defining what are the relevant objects of the game. The game also has to limit the choices of action open to the player: by establishing the rules of the game. And finally the game has to limit the time within which the player can act: by clearly setting the starting and finishing times of the process. Within this limited spatio-temporal unit the player can abandon himself to the process, acting without self-consciousness.”
“We have been most concerned with the concept of "self": of how it is forgotten when action is plentiful, and perhaps of what the experience of "self- lessness" is like. In addition we have, for this brief introduction to the play concept, attempted to define play without developing a complicated set of theoretical under-pinnings and special terms, but relying heavily on examples of activities people engage in as play. It is our contention that the full theoretical significance of the "self" concept does not unfold until the possibility of playing is considered.”
“Any concept of "self" relies on the ability of an actor to share perspectives of "others" who see him. Interaction is grounded in the "self" as integrator of one person's actions with another, and therefore as the continual negotiator of social reality.”
“But in the play situa- tion social reality is not up for negotiation: the actors are absolutely bound to a limited set of actions and to identical accounts of those actions; play is a social system with no deviance. Given a manageable number of options for action and an unambiguous symbol system, no viewpoint other than the player's viewpoint is necessary-the social self becomes superfluous, and the player can
merge with the process in a state of monistic awareness. This is our explanation of the
play experience-with one added feature: play stops when it becomes boredom.”
“play emerges out of the context of everyday life whenever the latter becomes too worrisome, and slips back into everyday life whenever the play experience becomes boring. The play experience is constructed by means of negotiation involving awareness of the dualistic social skills of language, categorization, and roles.”
“We have the ability to flip back and forth from worry to play to boredom, and sometimes these changes are very swift.”
“What is important here for social theory is that a negotiable reality which is subject to varying interpretations and requires a "self" (everyday life) coexists with a voluntarily structured reality with no referential require- ments (play). In other words, the traditional theoretical conflict between individual and society (or monism and dualism) is irrelevant for a man at play. As a pitcher steps up to the plate, it is useless to ask him for an opinion on the Vietnam war. His world at this point is limited to the batting box, and the whole network of social pressures and expectations has fallen away.”
“To understand play is important precisely because it combines in an experiential unity both social constraints and spontaneous behavior.”
“They are questions of the utmost seriousness in that they deal with one of the most rewarding and creative experiences that man is capable of feeling.”
Commitment and Compliance: Curious bedfellows in teacher collaboration
Jarzabkowski, L (1999, Nov 29-Dec 2) Commitment and Compliance: Curious bedfellows in teacher collaboration. Paper presented at the Australian Association for Research in Education and New Zealand Association for Research in Education joint conference.
This paper challenges some assumptions and assertions about teacher collaboration and collegiality, arguing that there is a great deal more collaboration and collegiality than commonly assumed; in addition, the author argues against Hargreaves’ assertion that there are two kinds of cultures in teaching: either “contrived collegiality” or “collaborative culture.” As a result of a year-long study that looks at these two models, the author comes to the conclusion that this is too simple and rigid a definition, that this is not an either/or dynamic, and that both can exist in varying degrees in the same organization.
A very helpful part of this paper is the time spent on defining both collegiality and collaboration, as neither seems to be clearly defined in previous literature and are often used interchangeably. For the purposes of this paper then, the author offers a definition for each. Collegiality is defined as “involvement with their peers on any level, be it intellectual, social, or emotional”; whereas collaboration “relates only to professional activities conducted with peers.” The author therefore sees collaboration as a subset of collegiality, but collaboration is more highly valued in current literature with previous authors discounting the social/emotional benefit of collegiality – which this author argues makes teachers more flexible, more supportive and more energized, which in turn benefits the students at the school.
At the same time however, the author notes that although collegiality is seen to be the “solution” to teacher isolation and individualism, teacher individualism is not bad, since it prevents “groupthink” and encourages creativity and reflection, among other things. In addition, other critics of the push for collegiality argue that collegiality “is a form of central control disguised as authonomy,” that it can endanger the efficiency of the school, slows down the decision-making process, and that it can undermine the position of the principal
“the welfare of the children [is] intimately bound up with the well-being of the adults who work with them. If the latter did not feel accepted as people in the staffroom, they would not be fully at ease in the classroom. Besides it [is] philosophically inconsistent to treat children as “whole” and “individual” but to ignore the personhood of teachers” (Nias 1998, p. 1262)
This paper challenges some assumptions and assertions about teacher collaboration and collegiality, arguing that there is a great deal more collaboration and collegiality than commonly assumed; in addition, the author argues against Hargreaves’ assertion that there are two kinds of cultures in teaching: either “contrived collegiality” or “collaborative culture.” As a result of a year-long study that looks at these two models, the author comes to the conclusion that this is too simple and rigid a definition, that this is not an either/or dynamic, and that both can exist in varying degrees in the same organization.
A very helpful part of this paper is the time spent on defining both collegiality and collaboration, as neither seems to be clearly defined in previous literature and are often used interchangeably. For the purposes of this paper then, the author offers a definition for each. Collegiality is defined as “involvement with their peers on any level, be it intellectual, social, or emotional”; whereas collaboration “relates only to professional activities conducted with peers.” The author therefore sees collaboration as a subset of collegiality, but collaboration is more highly valued in current literature with previous authors discounting the social/emotional benefit of collegiality – which this author argues makes teachers more flexible, more supportive and more energized, which in turn benefits the students at the school.
At the same time however, the author notes that although collegiality is seen to be the “solution” to teacher isolation and individualism, teacher individualism is not bad, since it prevents “groupthink” and encourages creativity and reflection, among other things. In addition, other critics of the push for collegiality argue that collegiality “is a form of central control disguised as authonomy,” that it can endanger the efficiency of the school, slows down the decision-making process, and that it can undermine the position of the principal
“the welfare of the children [is] intimately bound up with the well-being of the adults who work with them. If the latter did not feel accepted as people in the staffroom, they would not be fully at ease in the classroom. Besides it [is] philosophically inconsistent to treat children as “whole” and “individual” but to ignore the personhood of teachers” (Nias 1998, p. 1262)
Montessori and Optimal Experience Research: Toward Building a Comprehensive Education Reform
MONTESSORI AND OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE RESEARCH: TOWARD BUILDING A
COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION REFORM
David Kahn
The NAMTA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3. Summer 2003
This article begins with the author reviewing some of Dr Maria Montessori’s quotations about “normalization,” the term she uses to describe children operating in a state much like what Csikszentmihalyi describes as a flow state. She talks about such qualities as “spontaneous discipline” and “continuous and happy work,” which are hallmarks of the flow state as well. Her next quotation is also quite intriguing, in that she highlights the value of what she calls “concentration,” which is different from focus and is analogous to the flow state.
The article goes on to restate Csikszentmihalyi’s formulation of flow as an optimal relationship between challenge and skill, and presents a graph that visually models this relationship and the conditions associated with it.
Kahn goes on to restate Csikszentmihalyi’s nine characteristics of the flow experience, and goes on to compare the qualities of flow to the three characteristics of “normalized” children-- spontaneous discipline, concentration, and engagement. This is an especially intriguing idea, as it draws fascinating paralells between Montessori methods and flow theory.
Kahn shares an anecdote in which Csikszentmihalyi was told of Montessori’s formulation as described above, and shares Csikszentmihalyi’s delight at how Montessori regarded flow as innate in the human species.
The author goes on to discuss some differences between flow and Montessori’s formulation of normalization, and posits that Montessori works “bottom up” whereas flow works “top down,” referring to the age of those the theories apply best to. Kahn then discusses Dr. Kevin Rathunde, a flow researcher who worked with Csikszentmihalyi and has done extensive Montessori research.
Kahn turns to educational reform, and cites Rathunde’s work researching three distinct Montessori programs. Importantly, Kahn cites a construct of Rathunde’s in that flow and/or normalization can also be described by the term “undivided interest,” which is a condition in which intrinsic motivation and seriousness and high simultaneously.
____
“Only “normalised” children, aided by their environment, show in their subsequent development those wonderful powers that we describe: spontaneous discipline, continuous and happy work, social sentiments of help and sympa- thy for others....”
“Its principal feature never changes. It is “application to work.” An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fa- tigue, adds to the child’s energies and mental capacities and leads him to self-mastery. (The Absorbent Mind 257)”
“1. Goals Are Clear: One knows at every moment what one wants to do.
2. Feedback Is Immediate: One knows at every moment how well one is doing.
3. Skills Match Challenges: The opportunities for action in the environment are in balance with the person’s ability to act.
4. Concentration Is Deep: Attention is focused on the task at hand. 5. Problems Are Forgotten: Irrelevant stimuli are excluded from
consciousness.
6. Control Is Possible: In principle, success is in one’s hands.
7. Self-Consciousness Disappears: One has a sense of transcend- ing the limits of one’s ego.
8. The Sense of Time Is Altered: Usually it seems to pass much faster.
9. The Experience Becomes Autotelic: It is worth having for its own sake.”
“When told about Montessori’s normalization idea, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi quipped, “My goodness, this is fascinating. Dr. Montessori regarded normalization or flow as the norm of the species!” At this point a world-celebrated psychologist from the University of Chicago began to pursue the connection between his optimal experience called flow and Montessori’s normalization.”
“ Rathunde’s measure called “undivided interest” is when intrinsic motivation and seriousness are above average at the same time.”
COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION REFORM
David Kahn
The NAMTA Journal, Vol. 28, No. 3. Summer 2003
This article begins with the author reviewing some of Dr Maria Montessori’s quotations about “normalization,” the term she uses to describe children operating in a state much like what Csikszentmihalyi describes as a flow state. She talks about such qualities as “spontaneous discipline” and “continuous and happy work,” which are hallmarks of the flow state as well. Her next quotation is also quite intriguing, in that she highlights the value of what she calls “concentration,” which is different from focus and is analogous to the flow state.
The article goes on to restate Csikszentmihalyi’s formulation of flow as an optimal relationship between challenge and skill, and presents a graph that visually models this relationship and the conditions associated with it.
Kahn goes on to restate Csikszentmihalyi’s nine characteristics of the flow experience, and goes on to compare the qualities of flow to the three characteristics of “normalized” children-- spontaneous discipline, concentration, and engagement. This is an especially intriguing idea, as it draws fascinating paralells between Montessori methods and flow theory.
Kahn shares an anecdote in which Csikszentmihalyi was told of Montessori’s formulation as described above, and shares Csikszentmihalyi’s delight at how Montessori regarded flow as innate in the human species.
The author goes on to discuss some differences between flow and Montessori’s formulation of normalization, and posits that Montessori works “bottom up” whereas flow works “top down,” referring to the age of those the theories apply best to. Kahn then discusses Dr. Kevin Rathunde, a flow researcher who worked with Csikszentmihalyi and has done extensive Montessori research.
Kahn turns to educational reform, and cites Rathunde’s work researching three distinct Montessori programs. Importantly, Kahn cites a construct of Rathunde’s in that flow and/or normalization can also be described by the term “undivided interest,” which is a condition in which intrinsic motivation and seriousness and high simultaneously.
____
“Only “normalised” children, aided by their environment, show in their subsequent development those wonderful powers that we describe: spontaneous discipline, continuous and happy work, social sentiments of help and sympa- thy for others....”
“Its principal feature never changes. It is “application to work.” An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fa- tigue, adds to the child’s energies and mental capacities and leads him to self-mastery. (The Absorbent Mind 257)”
“1. Goals Are Clear: One knows at every moment what one wants to do.
2. Feedback Is Immediate: One knows at every moment how well one is doing.
3. Skills Match Challenges: The opportunities for action in the environment are in balance with the person’s ability to act.
4. Concentration Is Deep: Attention is focused on the task at hand. 5. Problems Are Forgotten: Irrelevant stimuli are excluded from
consciousness.
6. Control Is Possible: In principle, success is in one’s hands.
7. Self-Consciousness Disappears: One has a sense of transcend- ing the limits of one’s ego.
8. The Sense of Time Is Altered: Usually it seems to pass much faster.
9. The Experience Becomes Autotelic: It is worth having for its own sake.”
“When told about Montessori’s normalization idea, Dr. Csikszentmihalyi quipped, “My goodness, this is fascinating. Dr. Montessori regarded normalization or flow as the norm of the species!” At this point a world-celebrated psychologist from the University of Chicago began to pursue the connection between his optimal experience called flow and Montessori’s normalization.”
“ Rathunde’s measure called “undivided interest” is when intrinsic motivation and seriousness are above average at the same time.”
Neighborhood Disadvantage, Stressful Life Events, and Adjustment in Urban Elementary-School Children
Work Cited:
Attar, B. K., Guerra, N. G., & Tolan, P. H. (1994). Neighborhood Disadvantage, Stressful Life Events, and Adjustment in Urban Elementary-School Children. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology , 23, 391-400.
Summary/Analysis:
This article details how neighborhood disadvantage, stressful life events, and adjustment affect children attending urban elementary schools. Neighborhood disadvantage is defined as “the presence of a number of community-level stressors such as poverty, unemployment or underemployment, limited resources, substandard housing, and high crime rates” (391). The authors predict that students experiencing these three factors are more susceptible to depression, anxiety, and aggression. They note that most studies, which have supported this prediction, have been done in middle school or high school settings. Their primary interest in studying elementary school children is to gain insight in how, “symptoms of depression and/or anxiety as related to stress in elementary-age children” are influenced, developed, and shaped at an early age (399).
The article breaks down the study into three different areas: affects of neighborhood disadvantage, affects of stressful life events, and affects of adjusting to new and different situation/circumstances. Within each subarea, the authors explain how they assessed the children and what the impacts were. In regards to neighborhood disadvantage (ND), students were grouped into two camps: high-ND and moderate-ND. They found that students in high-ND school reported more stressors than students from moderate-ND school (395). The number of students receiving free school lunch, annual income of student households, and percentage of household receiving federal aid determined ND classifications. The authors assessed stressful life events and adjustment difficulties through individual student surveys and teacher input regarding student behavior. The survey questions covered three areas: life transitions (Have you recently moved? Did you have to go and live at a foster home? Etc.), circumscribed events (Did a family member die? Has a family member become seriously ill? Etc.), and exposure to violence (Has a family member been robbed or attacked? Have you seen or been around people shooting guns? Etc.).
In their research findings, the authors noted “that stressful life events in urban settings contribute significantly to children’s aggressive behavior” and “exposure to violence predicted both concurrent and prospective aggressive behavior” (398). Their study also showed no great correlation between aggression and sex, ethnicity, or grade. The authors suggested, “It may be that environmental variables are most critical in the link between stress exposure and aggression in urban communities.” (398). There was no significant connection with high stress factors and anxiety/depression in elementary-age children. The authors suggested that this was due to the fact that, “children may learn that being tough and aggressive both minimizes and maximizes their ability to survive under difficult and extreme environmental conditions…In fact this interpretation is consistent with our findings that stress did not relate significantly to depression/anxiety. In an environment where resources are scarce and violence is pervasive, children might be discourages from depressive or anxious reactions to stressful events, because children who cry of frighten easily would be less likely to achieve instrumental goals and could be easy targets for victimization by others.” (399)
Evaluate:
Authors Attar, Guerra, and Tolan were very scientific and thorough in writing their article. In the article, all accompanying research was cited, all terms were defined, and all parts of data collection were detailed and explained. The article was very formal, technical, and methodical. It was a bit hard to digest the information due to the style of writing. I had to extract important summative information out of mathematical analysis and survey equations. I felt that the writing style was a tad bit prescriptive and could have added more anecdotal accounts from students involved in the study. It would have been nice to hear the actual thoughts and feelings of the students themselves to make the article better rounded.
I also felt that the article did not present any new information that was not yet known by the reader. In fact, several parts of the study yielded inconclusive information due to the methods of data gathering. For example, “It is clear that these results should be interpreted with caution. First, several correlations between predictors and adjustment variables were low to modest, although is some cases (i.e. academic achievement), the stability of the criterion variable was exceedingly high (r = .78) and could have limited our ability to observe significant effects for stressors…In addition, as the Stress Index consisted of 16 items, this measure clearly did not assess the full range of potentially stressful events…. Had these [abuse, drug use, etc.] been included, stronger relations between stress and maladjustment may have been found.” (399)
Reflect:
This article made me think about the school I currently teach at. It’s amazing how resilient some students are and how many stressful situations they have to deal with in their home environment. Currently, I teach at a school considered to be high-ND. Several of the students in my classroom have dealt with issues of violence, guns, drugs, moving frequently, family members dying or being incarcerated, and unstable financial resources. Due to these stressful life experiences, students have difficulty maintaining focus on academics, especially when they are experiencing nothing but test-prep. Since I teach in a high-ND area, my school is historically known for being an underachieving. Therefore, the district places even more pressure on the teachers and administrators to raise the levels of testing achievement. So, on top of all the other life stressors by students are experiencing, they are now also experiencing academic stress and pressure.
After reading this article, I was reminded even more of how important a well-rounded education is. My students deserve an education that will help them understand and assist the community around them. They deserve an education that provides them with art, music, physical education, field trips, internships, scientific experiments, etc. Many of my students have never traveled outside of their immediate communities and have not received knowledge of worldly occurrences due to a lack of financial resources. Therefore, I must assist my students in making these connections as much as possible while I have them in my classroom. Through an inspirational education, my students may discover the possible solutions to assisting the type of community the come from. It is well known, that the best solutions for problems come from those immediately involved in the problem itself.
Attar, B. K., Guerra, N. G., & Tolan, P. H. (1994). Neighborhood Disadvantage, Stressful Life Events, and Adjustment in Urban Elementary-School Children. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology , 23, 391-400.
Summary/Analysis:
This article details how neighborhood disadvantage, stressful life events, and adjustment affect children attending urban elementary schools. Neighborhood disadvantage is defined as “the presence of a number of community-level stressors such as poverty, unemployment or underemployment, limited resources, substandard housing, and high crime rates” (391). The authors predict that students experiencing these three factors are more susceptible to depression, anxiety, and aggression. They note that most studies, which have supported this prediction, have been done in middle school or high school settings. Their primary interest in studying elementary school children is to gain insight in how, “symptoms of depression and/or anxiety as related to stress in elementary-age children” are influenced, developed, and shaped at an early age (399).
The article breaks down the study into three different areas: affects of neighborhood disadvantage, affects of stressful life events, and affects of adjusting to new and different situation/circumstances. Within each subarea, the authors explain how they assessed the children and what the impacts were. In regards to neighborhood disadvantage (ND), students were grouped into two camps: high-ND and moderate-ND. They found that students in high-ND school reported more stressors than students from moderate-ND school (395). The number of students receiving free school lunch, annual income of student households, and percentage of household receiving federal aid determined ND classifications. The authors assessed stressful life events and adjustment difficulties through individual student surveys and teacher input regarding student behavior. The survey questions covered three areas: life transitions (Have you recently moved? Did you have to go and live at a foster home? Etc.), circumscribed events (Did a family member die? Has a family member become seriously ill? Etc.), and exposure to violence (Has a family member been robbed or attacked? Have you seen or been around people shooting guns? Etc.).
In their research findings, the authors noted “that stressful life events in urban settings contribute significantly to children’s aggressive behavior” and “exposure to violence predicted both concurrent and prospective aggressive behavior” (398). Their study also showed no great correlation between aggression and sex, ethnicity, or grade. The authors suggested, “It may be that environmental variables are most critical in the link between stress exposure and aggression in urban communities.” (398). There was no significant connection with high stress factors and anxiety/depression in elementary-age children. The authors suggested that this was due to the fact that, “children may learn that being tough and aggressive both minimizes and maximizes their ability to survive under difficult and extreme environmental conditions…In fact this interpretation is consistent with our findings that stress did not relate significantly to depression/anxiety. In an environment where resources are scarce and violence is pervasive, children might be discourages from depressive or anxious reactions to stressful events, because children who cry of frighten easily would be less likely to achieve instrumental goals and could be easy targets for victimization by others.” (399)
Evaluate:
Authors Attar, Guerra, and Tolan were very scientific and thorough in writing their article. In the article, all accompanying research was cited, all terms were defined, and all parts of data collection were detailed and explained. The article was very formal, technical, and methodical. It was a bit hard to digest the information due to the style of writing. I had to extract important summative information out of mathematical analysis and survey equations. I felt that the writing style was a tad bit prescriptive and could have added more anecdotal accounts from students involved in the study. It would have been nice to hear the actual thoughts and feelings of the students themselves to make the article better rounded.
I also felt that the article did not present any new information that was not yet known by the reader. In fact, several parts of the study yielded inconclusive information due to the methods of data gathering. For example, “It is clear that these results should be interpreted with caution. First, several correlations between predictors and adjustment variables were low to modest, although is some cases (i.e. academic achievement), the stability of the criterion variable was exceedingly high (r = .78) and could have limited our ability to observe significant effects for stressors…In addition, as the Stress Index consisted of 16 items, this measure clearly did not assess the full range of potentially stressful events…. Had these [abuse, drug use, etc.] been included, stronger relations between stress and maladjustment may have been found.” (399)
Reflect:
This article made me think about the school I currently teach at. It’s amazing how resilient some students are and how many stressful situations they have to deal with in their home environment. Currently, I teach at a school considered to be high-ND. Several of the students in my classroom have dealt with issues of violence, guns, drugs, moving frequently, family members dying or being incarcerated, and unstable financial resources. Due to these stressful life experiences, students have difficulty maintaining focus on academics, especially when they are experiencing nothing but test-prep. Since I teach in a high-ND area, my school is historically known for being an underachieving. Therefore, the district places even more pressure on the teachers and administrators to raise the levels of testing achievement. So, on top of all the other life stressors by students are experiencing, they are now also experiencing academic stress and pressure.
After reading this article, I was reminded even more of how important a well-rounded education is. My students deserve an education that will help them understand and assist the community around them. They deserve an education that provides them with art, music, physical education, field trips, internships, scientific experiments, etc. Many of my students have never traveled outside of their immediate communities and have not received knowledge of worldly occurrences due to a lack of financial resources. Therefore, I must assist my students in making these connections as much as possible while I have them in my classroom. Through an inspirational education, my students may discover the possible solutions to assisting the type of community the come from. It is well known, that the best solutions for problems come from those immediately involved in the problem itself.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Differentiation and the Brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom
Sousa, D. & Tomlinson C.A. (2011), Differentiation and the Brain: How neuroscience supports the learner-friendly classroom. Bloomington IN, Solution Tree Press.
Books main ideas/arguments
This book is a great introduction into understanding how the human brain functions within a classroom environment. The book explores: how teachers can create a “brain-friendly classroom” by differentiation, the effects of the teacher’s mindset on the students, what type of learning environment is conducive to differentiated learning, discovering effective practices for assessment of differentiated learning, how to look for student readiness, the importance of student interests, the components of learning profiles, and how to effectively manage the differentiated classroom. It emphasizes that the teacher and the student should be in a growth mindset for differentiation to be truly effective. The book stresses the importance of mapping out goals and creating curriculum organized around content goals.
Quotes:
“Divergent thinking, on the other hand, is a thought process that generates creative ideas by exploring different ways of solving problems. This process of the leads to new ideas and concepts, producing novel patterns and expanding existing cognitive networks”(14)
Divergent thinking is something that I’m currently exploring in my classroom and what to incorporate more of. I feel that this is what true learning and new ideas are derived from this. In the past I have concentrated on giving tools to solve particular problems, but these same problems can be solved in different and creative ways.
“Because the brain is constantly searching for meaning, students will give their attention to what they find personally meaningful. And the more meaningful it is, the more engaged they will become” (15)
“Authentic curriculum casts students in the roles of problem solvers and creators of knowledge rather than mere consumers of knowledge”
I couldn’t agree more but also find it tricky to have similar learning goals for students and follow a curriculum map. How long do we let them discover and create when there may be a lot of standards to cover for the class? I know that standards can be covered using more creative and engaging methods, but I just wonder what the balance should be between student led discoveries and tool building lectures?
Books main ideas/arguments
This book is a great introduction into understanding how the human brain functions within a classroom environment. The book explores: how teachers can create a “brain-friendly classroom” by differentiation, the effects of the teacher’s mindset on the students, what type of learning environment is conducive to differentiated learning, discovering effective practices for assessment of differentiated learning, how to look for student readiness, the importance of student interests, the components of learning profiles, and how to effectively manage the differentiated classroom. It emphasizes that the teacher and the student should be in a growth mindset for differentiation to be truly effective. The book stresses the importance of mapping out goals and creating curriculum organized around content goals.
Quotes:
“Divergent thinking, on the other hand, is a thought process that generates creative ideas by exploring different ways of solving problems. This process of the leads to new ideas and concepts, producing novel patterns and expanding existing cognitive networks”(14)
Divergent thinking is something that I’m currently exploring in my classroom and what to incorporate more of. I feel that this is what true learning and new ideas are derived from this. In the past I have concentrated on giving tools to solve particular problems, but these same problems can be solved in different and creative ways.
“Because the brain is constantly searching for meaning, students will give their attention to what they find personally meaningful. And the more meaningful it is, the more engaged they will become” (15)
“Authentic curriculum casts students in the roles of problem solvers and creators of knowledge rather than mere consumers of knowledge”
I couldn’t agree more but also find it tricky to have similar learning goals for students and follow a curriculum map. How long do we let them discover and create when there may be a lot of standards to cover for the class? I know that standards can be covered using more creative and engaging methods, but I just wonder what the balance should be between student led discoveries and tool building lectures?
Building Collaborative Cultures: Seeking ways to reshape urban schools
Petersen, K. (1994) NCREL Monograph: Building collaborative cultures: Seeking ways to reshape urban schools. North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. Available:www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/educatrs/leadrshp/le0pet.htm
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first to identify the components of a collaborative culture and secondly to discuss ways that schools can encourage a collaborative culture. As many papers on collaboration seem to do, this one also establishes the solitary nature of traditional teaching where teachers are locked away in their classrooms and there is little substantive adult interaction. This paper argues that in addition to other established characteristics of successful schools, new research shows that collegiality and collaboration are important to school success since they encourage shared problem-solving, professional networking, risk-taking, and increase job satisfaction (to name a few).
The paper then describes noncollaborative and collaborative cultures. Referencing the work of Fullan and Hargreaves, the author describes three kinds of noncollaborative cultures: Balkinization (separate groups seeking power and influence); comfortable collaborations (a superficial kind of pseudo-collaboration with teachers sharing a few materials, techniques or bits of wisdome); and contrived collegiality (where administrators put formal structures in place that force teachers to work together on things like school improvement teams or peer coaching). All of these may help teachers feel closer in some way, but as the author notes, they will “not necessarily foster the deeper, more substantial, and more productive informal linkages, norms, and shared commitment found in collaborative settings” (5) In contrast to a noncollaborative culture, the author then describes the benefits of collaborative schools while acknowledging that they aren’t easy to develop and that attention to collegial relationships, structures, and norms is important.
Collegial relationships are divided into four types (with reference to Little (1990)). Three of the four types (storytelling and scanning for ideas; aid and assistance; sharing) are described as being a more superficial collegiality, while the fourth, “joint work” proved the opportunity “for teachers to interact around problems of practice, fostering relationships characterized by openness and trust, developing a shared technical language, and making educational philosophies more congruent” (7). Examples of joint work include (but aren’t limited to) designing and preparing materials, designing curriculum units, preparing lesson plans, analyzing practices and effects, and working on interdisciplinary units.
For collegiality to develop in a school, the authors note several factors that are critical: 1) committed and generous teachers who are open to change and learning; 2)organizational norms that support collegial dialogue in a safe environment; 3)smaller “reference groups” such as grade-level teams or departments that are conducive to discussion and debate; 4) sufficient time for teachers to “meet, talk, think, and interact. When time is scarce, the dialogue and exchanges of information are more superficial and focused on immediate problems, issues, or obligations”; 5) administration that encourages and accommodates collegiality and fosters teacher leadership.
Another key to creating collaborative cultures is in recognizing what the narrative of the school is and who is telling the story. Is the story told by the “gossips,” “storytellers,” “priests/priestesses,” or the “heroes/heroines”? Is collegiality celebrated? Complained about? What stories are told and retold? How does this affect the school’s culture? In identifying those positive, encouraging voices in an organization and directing new staff their way, the culture of collegiality can be encouraged.
Finally, the author notes that in a collaborative culture, leadership is shared. He dispells some of the myths of leadership, argung that many teachers have leadership skills that can be effectively utilized and noting the importance of encouragement, trust, and building confidence in others in effective leadership.
Quotes: “Collaboration is not simply a group of congenial, happy teachers. As Fullan and Hargreaves point out (1991), “contentment should not be mistaken for excellence: (p. 47). In collaborative school, the natural give-and-take of professionals means that conflict, disagreement, and discord will sometimes occur. But, these situations can be worked out for the good of the students.” (4)
“”Knowing what members of the school define as success is a way to know what is valued (Schein, 1985).
“What teachers, administrators, and others view as the measures of success often shapes how they spend their time, what problems they try to solve together, and what gets their attention” (10)
The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first to identify the components of a collaborative culture and secondly to discuss ways that schools can encourage a collaborative culture. As many papers on collaboration seem to do, this one also establishes the solitary nature of traditional teaching where teachers are locked away in their classrooms and there is little substantive adult interaction. This paper argues that in addition to other established characteristics of successful schools, new research shows that collegiality and collaboration are important to school success since they encourage shared problem-solving, professional networking, risk-taking, and increase job satisfaction (to name a few).
The paper then describes noncollaborative and collaborative cultures. Referencing the work of Fullan and Hargreaves, the author describes three kinds of noncollaborative cultures: Balkinization (separate groups seeking power and influence); comfortable collaborations (a superficial kind of pseudo-collaboration with teachers sharing a few materials, techniques or bits of wisdome); and contrived collegiality (where administrators put formal structures in place that force teachers to work together on things like school improvement teams or peer coaching). All of these may help teachers feel closer in some way, but as the author notes, they will “not necessarily foster the deeper, more substantial, and more productive informal linkages, norms, and shared commitment found in collaborative settings” (5) In contrast to a noncollaborative culture, the author then describes the benefits of collaborative schools while acknowledging that they aren’t easy to develop and that attention to collegial relationships, structures, and norms is important.
Collegial relationships are divided into four types (with reference to Little (1990)). Three of the four types (storytelling and scanning for ideas; aid and assistance; sharing) are described as being a more superficial collegiality, while the fourth, “joint work” proved the opportunity “for teachers to interact around problems of practice, fostering relationships characterized by openness and trust, developing a shared technical language, and making educational philosophies more congruent” (7). Examples of joint work include (but aren’t limited to) designing and preparing materials, designing curriculum units, preparing lesson plans, analyzing practices and effects, and working on interdisciplinary units.
For collegiality to develop in a school, the authors note several factors that are critical: 1) committed and generous teachers who are open to change and learning; 2)organizational norms that support collegial dialogue in a safe environment; 3)smaller “reference groups” such as grade-level teams or departments that are conducive to discussion and debate; 4) sufficient time for teachers to “meet, talk, think, and interact. When time is scarce, the dialogue and exchanges of information are more superficial and focused on immediate problems, issues, or obligations”; 5) administration that encourages and accommodates collegiality and fosters teacher leadership.
Another key to creating collaborative cultures is in recognizing what the narrative of the school is and who is telling the story. Is the story told by the “gossips,” “storytellers,” “priests/priestesses,” or the “heroes/heroines”? Is collegiality celebrated? Complained about? What stories are told and retold? How does this affect the school’s culture? In identifying those positive, encouraging voices in an organization and directing new staff their way, the culture of collegiality can be encouraged.
Finally, the author notes that in a collaborative culture, leadership is shared. He dispells some of the myths of leadership, argung that many teachers have leadership skills that can be effectively utilized and noting the importance of encouragement, trust, and building confidence in others in effective leadership.
Quotes: “Collaboration is not simply a group of congenial, happy teachers. As Fullan and Hargreaves point out (1991), “contentment should not be mistaken for excellence: (p. 47). In collaborative school, the natural give-and-take of professionals means that conflict, disagreement, and discord will sometimes occur. But, these situations can be worked out for the good of the students.” (4)
“”Knowing what members of the school define as success is a way to know what is valued (Schein, 1985).
“What teachers, administrators, and others view as the measures of success often shapes how they spend their time, what problems they try to solve together, and what gets their attention” (10)