Four FLOWing Waves – Part 3

Introduction

In this four-part writing, I am sharing four memorable examples of learners finding flow, and each has brought much joy to the learner and teacher. They are amongst so many whom I have met, taught or coached in the same span of time who have found flow, but they some of the most memorable ones.

Flow here is referencing the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ (1990). Flow refers to a mental state that is highly focused and energized. It occurs when one is immersed in an activity that is delightful, satisfying and often productive. Neuroscientists’ research found that such enjoyable engagement facilitated the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In learning theory, a source of joy in learning comes from identified attained competence, which in itself, is a driver of intrinsic motivation. 

Rising from the ashes - when competence enabled a significant turn around in learning experience 

A few weeks ago, I witnessed an upper-level student who became a wonderful exemplar of the theory of competence-driven motivation theory in learning psychology. Since the time he joined the programme, he hasn’t been committed to quality work, project after project. He is an extrovert and has devoted much energy on socializing during project time rather than focusing on his work. Art making can be social, and interaction is never an issue because peer learning and synergy can be very productive. But with his rather excessive ‘socializing’, the distraction took its toll, and he has not performed in art, and in his overall performance. With successive poor summative assessment results over 2 and 1/2 years, he has toned down his extroversion, but the quality of his effort has not seen noticeable improvement, until this project. He is also very aware that he has struggled to find his academic footing – or his ‘groove’ as a learner. Earlier this year, he made a lamentation on the previous project, and according to my colleague who heard it, found his tone loaded with defeat. It almost felt like he has 'resigned' and could only attain mediocrity at the very best. No teacher likes a lazy student, but it is important to find out the real reason that belies the laziness. Laziness is often a symptom. In Carol Dweck’s writing, laziness and avoidance behaviour is a veil that hides an unconstructive Fixed Mindset or Entity theory (Dweck et. al.). Over the years since having read education literature on self-efficacy and learning, I have come to recognize that many of the ‘lazy’ students I have handled were often mired in a rather self-defeating fixed mindset. It is also very possible that laziness stems from the lack of quality coaching at home in personal mastery but I have worked with and observed this boy long enough to come to the same deduction that his appearance of laziness is more than just a lack of personal discipline. The presence of 'defensiveness' and 'avoidance' described in Dweck's writing has been seen in this student.

Finally, in this semester, he has found his ‘groove’ through a 3D kinetic sculpture module that he has the autonomy to choose a subject matter that he has deep interest – Sci-fi warships and artillery. Autonomy gave him the choice starting position of familiarity, but this is after all his first ever 3D kinetic sculpture project, so it is also a new frontier! In Dweck's theory of Incremental (Growth) and Entity (Fixed) Mindsets, most learners of the latter tend to eschew trying new learning, because new territories never guarantee swift success even in familiar disciplines or domains of learning. Fearing loss of self-esteem when things get tough and when there is no guaranteed success, Fixed Mindset learners would keep doing what they know they cannot go wrong (or assumed they can't go wrong), and what they have previously been good at. It is therefore not surprising that their level of performance generally plateau and stagnate within their comfort zone, even when they are working in repetitious fashion by rehashing what they have been doing for some time. 3D kinetic sculpture that has the theme of sci-fi warships is not only a new frontier to this student, but it actually demands focus and intensity, meticulous work with precision, and all these qualities have thus far been absolutely absent in this students' past projects. So what got him to take a step into a relatively unchartered waters? 

Firstly, in my opinion, this student being still young, has some degree of malleability, however small it may be. More importantly, it is the provision for autonomy - each student has free choice to pick a theme they are keen to explore - as long as they fulfill the kinetic 3D sculpture parameters. They also have the autonomy to determine the degree of complexity in the requirement of the 'kinetic' element. In essence, there is the element of differentiated product (D.I) embedded. The autonomy in this student's choice of subject matter is not the main engine for high quality effort, but it is the very pivotal 'window' that draws his mind into a more sustained engagement, and bought critical time to keep his interest and engagement, pushing past his usually very short threshold of 'I give up'. And this sustained engagement becomes the very premise that allowed him to hold some early but needful focus to develop competence and then grow the intensity of his effort. He also was receptive to feedback that would help level up the detail and precision on something he so clearly loves - sci-fi warships. In previous projects, he would often be resistant to feedback (as it would mean expend more effort to work on the feedback), dismissive of them (because he would look less smart by conceding to the presence of low quality), or at best worked on feedback with a limited lukewarm effort (probably to get the teachers off his back). 

In this project, he has shown clear competency in ideating, designing and creating a sci-fi artillery as the kinetic 3D sculpture, leveraging on all the knowledge and visual references he has collected and gleaned because of this interest. One stark difference is that his work space was strewn with materials from a lot of experimentation using recycled corrugated boards to create warship components. His previous project work space never had such productive mess, because he had often truncated and bypassed process work. I saw the intense focus in his eyes and the almost surgeon-like steadiness of his hands when working on a very small detail - something I had never seen in this student. He even worked on a final feedback on the presentation of the work towards the completion of this module - totally opposite to his previous projects response! I surmise that he certainly has felt being in control of what he was achieving. Perhaps for the first time as a secondary school student, the locus of control in learning is within him, and the ensuing intrinsic motivation translated into highly focused effort - the Flow 

For the past 2 to 3 years, to him I have always been the much-dreaded stern teacher whose expectation is probably higher than what he would aspire to attain. But seeing him finding ‘flow’ in his work, I felt he should be clearly told – that his effort is producing evidence of competence. I unreservedly praised him, and I used the word ‘excellent’ (I do not use this word loosely). I was very deliberate not to link the praise to natural ability or anything ambiguous but pointed to the intensive detailed work, and (for the first time) the impressive precision he achieved. Anyone who has read Hattie and Timperley’s article  The Power of Feedback (2007) would know what kind of praise I am referring to. But I was not merely using a theory – I truly believe praise should be linked to action, and I am really very encouraged to see this ‘turn around’ in this student!

I told him “I am really very glad I finally get to see the excellent version of you”. I chose my words carefully - I finally get to see - it means he has it within him (which I am now convinced) but it has not been brought to actualization all the while. Then I pointed his work to my colleague, who was the one who pointed out the boy’s unprecedented focus in the work. I said, “He has very good dexterity skills, with very precise control on the details in this work”.

Then in the evening this student proactively wanted to complete the learning self-reflection Google form and sought an extension because his school email account got locked and needs technical assistance. Before this, he wouldn’t have bothered. When his email account was reactivated a week later, he submitted his reflection – a first! Finally, he is interested in process documentation and project reflection.

I would like the readers of this blog to consider the sequence below, as a possible progression in learning from initial fleeting engagement to sustained committed effort in learning. This can be applied to all forms of cognitive engagement, from childhood games to hobbies to academic pursuit:

• Curiosity sparks interest – draws initial cognitive engagement

• Support (scaffolding) in learning develops competence

• Competence (efficacy cues) fuels motivation (intrinsic)

• Motivation sustains engagement for competence

• Competence develops affective engagement (commitment)

• Affective engagement sustains cognitive engagement

• Assessed competence – efficacy cues – stabilizes self-efficacy

• Self-efficacy – empowerment

• Self-efficacy develops self-regulatory learning

To represent the dynamic relationships of competence and intrinsic motivation in learning engagement, here is a simple visual analogy, and I hope everyone of us finds and grow that dynamic impetus within ourselves, and help the young people whom we teach, coach or mentor to also find this ‘groove’.

Four FLOWing Waves – Part 2

Introduction

In this four-part writing, I am sharing four memorable examples of learners finding flow, and each has brought much joy to the learner and teacher. They are amongst so many whom I have met, taught or coached in the same span of time who have found flow, but they some of the most memorable ones.

Flow here is referencing the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ (1990). Flow refers to a mental state that is highly focused and energized. It occurs when one is immersed in an activity that is delightful, satisfying and often productive. Neuroscientists’ research found that such enjoyable engagement facilitated the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In learning theory, a source of joy in learning comes from identified attained competence, which in itself, is a driver of intrinsic motivation. 

 2^nd Wave of Flow – Yes I got the BROWN! 

A class of new students in the introductory painting module were given the ‘brown challenge’ at the start of a 7-week module as a scaffolding activity. They were to mix a shade of brown that is shown in a printed photo of a fruit or vegetable. Each student is given a different photograph. And they were to derive the brown shade by mixing just the three primary colors. The crux lies in the ratio between the three colors. There is brown paint in the set of paint tubes, but the purpose is to build students’ capability not just in closely observing the color of the fruit/vegetable but also in observing and analyzing the interaction of the base colors. This is to get them to learn the property of acrylic paint, the pigment, their translucency and luminosity and ways to control the changes rather than relying on ready mixed shades.

A student sees colors rather differently from the rest. (Now I hate to use the term ‘color deficiency’ because it is a totally wrong representation of how people with a differentiated way of perceptually process the hues and pigments they see. There is no deficiency, just difference, and nothing medically unsound with such difference). Throughout the activity, the student scrutinized every slightest change to the brown shade with each careful adjustment to the ratio of the primary colors, and constantly compared that to the reference image. Now this is a deliberate scaffolding activity to coach them on dealing with wet pigments, and this boy was making every right move.

The first 5 students amongst the dozen who could accurately get the brown shade according to the reference would get 2 small packs of chocolate candy - a brown prize! One after another were getting close to nailing it and the race heated up! One student got it followed by another… and the boy who sees colors differently got the brown shade just in time to make the top 5! I got the brown winners to the front to collect the candy. This boy eagerly came up, got his two small packs of candy, clutched them firmly in his fists, turned and returned to his workstation while repeatedly punching the air with his candy-clutching fists! It was a beautiful and moving moment for me to behold, I held back tears. To the boy, it was a triumphant moment, a moment of overcoming years of growing up as a child who probably felt he has something missing compared to his peers. It was sweet victory! It was what John Dewey called esthetic moment in his book Art and Experience (Dewey. 1934). Dewey wrote extensively on this esthetic moment, and the best I could in my humble attempt to paraphrase that would be ‘An experience of intrinsic joy’. 

The module is a 7-week module. After the brown challenge in the first lesson, each student would pick a vegetable or fruit they want to depict in paint. For this student, I carefully got him to tell me what he sees in a color wheel, because I needed to understand what he sees, so I could give him a differentiated guidance. He chose a vegetable with a dominant color that he mostly sees a different hue, but he insisted on taking that challenge. I would guess that personal victory in the brown challenged spurred him a little. Anyway, it was GAME ON! 

Throughout the module, he showed much tenacity in trying to mix the color as accurately as he could, and he actually achieved that! I had not seen a student scrutinizing every bit of colors so closely as he had – with his nose often nearly touching the paint palette! His hands were often paint stained and he was oblivious to that – this is clearly flow in action. At the end of the module when all the works were completed, I got each student to share their new learning discoveries in the module and analyze how that compared with the previous module of carbon pencil and charcoal self-portrait. I had guessed that this boy might prefer the charcoal module as it did not involve colors. To everyone’s surprise, he said he preferred the painting module because it was more fun when it was hard! I smiled and thanked him for his grit! Inside my heart, as an educator, I had just experienced another esthetic moment (Dewey. 1934). 

Four FLOWing Waves – Part 1

Introduction

In this four-part writing, I am sharing four memorable examples of learners finding flow, and each has brought much joy to the learner and teacher. They are amongst so many whom I have met, taught or coached in the same span of time who have found flow, but they some of the most memorable ones.

Flow here is referencing the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s theory of ‘Flow’ (1990). Flow refers to a mental state that is highly focused and energized. It occurs when one is immersed in an activity that is delightful, satisfying and often productive. Neuroscientists’ research found that such enjoyable engagement facilitated the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine. In learning theory, a source of joy in learning comes from identified attained competence, which in itself, is a driver of intrinsic motivation. 

 

1st wave of Flow – From unmotivated to unstoppable

This happened when I was teaching pre-service student-teacher in National Institute of Education. An exchange student from Australia was very keen to visit a local school art class, and I managed to arrange for her to visit a primary school Art Club session.
 In the session, the students were given a task to work on a mixed media work to depict a colorful tree, using paper collage and oil pastels. Some of the Art Club members were restless but I noticed a boy was working quietly by himself despite amidst the more restless and loud students. I saw his rendering of the tree branches with oil pastel and saw glimpses of Claude Monet’s late paintings, where the vibrant colors and brush strokes were more like Fauvist works. But his oil pastel strokes were quiet rigid, so I decided to give him a little extra fuel. I showed him a couple of ways to use the wrist to change the angles of the oil pastels sticks that can create more varied and fluid types of strokes. They were achievable techniques, and he was quite delighted to try. The work slowly became more expressive and painterly. Then I turned on my phone and searched for Monet’s later paintings of bushes and trees in his Givenchy home. I showed the images to the boy and said, “What you are doing reminds me of these. Monet is a famous French painter you know? Your work looks a bit like his” He smiled and plunged right back into his work and worked on his oil pastels more ferociously! When he was done, I suggested he could start another piece of a different tree, and he jumped right into it. I took his work and showed the Art Club teacher, “Hey, you have a next Monet in the club”.

At the end of the Art Club session, the boy took the initiative to wipe down the tables and washed the cloth. He was every inch the perfect club member! Another teacher, a friend of mine who helped to facilitate the school visit for the exchange student came to the Art Room to say hello. I showed her this boy’s work and said “Look at the new Monet’s work”. Then I pointed to the boy “It’s his work”. My teacher-friend then whispered to me that this student had motivation and behavioral issues in other lessons. I leaned towards my friend and whispered back “You know, I saw nothing of that today! He was the best of the whole group!”

Need I say more? I have just described how the sense of competence has magically transformed a student, and he found his flow. Now I am realistic, that the boy’s lack of motivation in other lessons would unlikely be changed within a short time. But what is a great premise for working on is to help him gradually attain competency, and the intrinsic motivation will come, not from without but from within him. No words of motivation like “you can do it” from a teacher will be strong enough as a generator of motivation. Rather, it will be words like “See what you have achieved! Now you know you really can do it”.  The student must first be given the scaffolding to attain some competence, and the evidence of competence must first be observable and recognized by the student. When competence is found and sustained with the teacher’s pedagogical support, the productive engine will start – and when that competence-motivation engine is ignited, it will be octane-driven and unstoppable!