“Flow”: How to Design Optimal Learning Activities

Contrary to other psychological concepts such as Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset”, the notion of “flow” developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is still quite foreign to many in the world of education. However, this simple yet powerful theory has the potential to help teachers design both more enjoyable and more effective learning activities.

Csikszentmihalyi discovered “flow” during his research on the psychology of happiness. Rather unexpectedly, when asked to describe their most enjoyable experiences, participants from all around the world didn’t necessarily describe “pleasurable” ones. Of course, the kind of activities that made them feel happy were all very different; but they had one thing in common: they induced a unique mental state characterized by complete absorption in a task for its own sake. Faced with an appropriate challenge, the participants needed to use a particular set of skills to the utmost, leading to intense concentration and an exhilarating sense of achievement.
 
One reason why this mental state relates to education is because the enjoyment it affords is directly related to the growth, or “complexification,” of the self. In that sense, learning activities could and should provide students with “flow” experiences. This does not mean that learning should be “fun” in the usual sense of the word. All too often, entertaining classroom activities are actually very ineffective ways to teach and learn as they do not provide real challenges or help practice complex relevant skills.
 
To be truly engaging and productive (i.,e., to induces states of “flow”), learning activities should, according to Csikszentmihalyi’s research:
 

• Have a clear goal: Stating the objective of a lesson is important, but what really matters is that this objetive be operationalized, so that students frame what they are doing at any given moment as a problem-solving process.

 

• Be hands-on: Students should be the ones doing the cognitive lift (the work towards the solution to the problem) 

 

• Be bound by rules: The work required from students should be the exercise of an identified set of skills

 

• Balance challenge and skills: Achieving success should require both full engagement and a slight stretch of student’s initial knowledge and abilities

 

• Provide immediate feedback: As they are working in a clear direction, at full capacity, with proper guidance and scaffolding, students should receive constant information about their successes, failures, and overall degree of advancement in the task.

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Reference: Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1990) Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. London: Harper and Row.
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