Creativity, Engagement and Real Learning

I'm reading Creativity by reknown researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihaly and am struck by the correlation between what he describes as"flow" and the traits of engagement. Csikszentmihaly defines flow as a state of consciousness where the mind is highly focused and engaged in the experience. There is a feeling of effortlessness and automatic purposefulness with the task. He goes on to
identify these 9 elements of the state of flow.
1. Clear goals exist every step of the way: When a job is enjoyable , it also has clear goals and purposes
2. Immediate feedback to one's actions is available: In the state of flow, the experience is self
3. There is a balance between challenges and skills: If a task is too easy, the level of engagement can be low, if its is too difficult, it can be frustrating.
4.Action and awareness are merged: In true engagement, the mind is focused, concentration is intense
5. There are no distractions: There is a sense of immediacy,of being fully present in the moment
6.There is no fear of failure: A sense of control is apparent because the skill level is well matched with the task at hand.
7.Self-consciousness disappears: So intense is the focus that our normal sense of watching ourselves participating disappears. There is a loss of ego and a feeling of oneness in the experience.
8.The sense of time becomes distorted: When in flow, one loses a sense of time. Things seem other worldly.
9.The activity becomes autotelic: There are no external rewards, no outside agenda, the activity becomes satisfying in and of itself.

These 9 elements of the "flow" experience were arrived at by Csikszentmihaly after he and his team of researchers interviewed some 90 talented, high achieving, creative individuals who reported on their life work and thought processes.

The implications of "flow" or engagement for classroom teaching are apparent. We cannot expect students to be engaged in work that they have not in one way or another connected to. Choice and self selection of tasks is an important prerequisite for student engagement otherwise the task "lives outside" of the student's interest and learning ends up being superficial.

Another critical requirement for engaged learning (in fact by definition,all learning demands engagement at some level), is the balance between skill level and challenge. As in flow, a task that is too easy never "hooks" the students, one that is too difficult results in frustration or in the student never really participating fully because the assignment is not accessible given his/her skill set.

A third essential is that of clear goals. Beginning with the end in mind sets the scene and when students know where they are going, they are able to self monitor their progress. Automatic feedback can also result if the goals are clearly identifiable since the students are alerted to the benchmarks they are working towards.

A final ingredient for creating inviting and potentially engaging learning environments is the removal of external reward systems. When students are in control of their learning, guided by a teacher's skilled engineering of the scene, the tasks they choose become autotelic ones where the joy of participating in the experience becomes the reward itself.

This is when deep and meaningful learning happens. We should settle for nothing less in our classrooms.