Is this idea, of school as running counter to reality, one that we can challenge? Can we fix it? Can we change what we do so that students no longer feel the tension of the "daily divide" between school and the rest of their lives? I believe that David Wiley would respond affirmatively. So, too, I believe, would author and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
I first encountered Csikszentmihalyi's work as I was working with like-minded colleagues to explore issues of school reform, reinvention and innovation. Csikszentmihalyi's work centers around the notion of "flow," a state of consciousness, in which an individual is completely absorbed in an activity. My students often describe this state of being as when they lose all track of time and space. In addition, Csikszentmihalyi characterizes "flow" with the following nine component states:
* challenge-skill balance (see graphic below)
* merging of action and awareness
* immediate and unambiguous feedback
* concentration on the task at hand
* paradox of control
* transformation of time
* loss of self-consciousness
* autotelic experience
The following graphic represents the connection between skill level, challenge level and flow.
In this piece, "Thoughts about Education" (found at http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/future/creating_the_future/crfut_csikszent.cfm) Csikszentmihalyi argues that motivation is a key component for empowering children and helping to reform our current educational system.
"The claim is that if educators invested a fraction of the energy on stimulating the students' enjoyment of learning that they now spend in trying to transmit information we could achieve much better results. Literacy, numeracy, or indeed any other subject matter will be mastered more readily and more thoroughly when the student becomes able to derive intrinsic rewards from learning. At present, however, lamentably few students would recognize the idea that learning can be enjoyable." (Creating the Future Perspectives on Educational Change, 2002)
As I read that statement, I wondered whether it is that students wouldn't recognize learning itself as enjoyable or if this applies only to learning in school. I am inclined to believe that it is the latter. There is really no doubt in my mind that children enjoy learning in contexts outside of school on a regular basis. So, how can we take the concept of "flow" and apply it to learning in schools? And how can we, as teachers, help students to get into flow in contexts other than extra curricular activities and electives? How do we help to blur the lines between "education" and "everyday" so that when children and young adults become excited about learning something new, whether that be learning information related to a topic about which they are passionate or a new skill, they see school as the place where that learning can happen and they view teachers as the helpful mentors and facilitators that can help them to achieve their goals?
I believe that if we look back at the component states of flow listed above, there are many connections between these characteristics and open education as described by David Wiley and others as well as successful models of technology integration in schools. While I still have a lot to learn about both of these topics, it seem that integrating technology and the use of OER can certainly help to differentiate learning for students in order to more frequently achieve a more optimal "challenge-skill balance." I also believe that this type of differentiation goes way beyond using technology tools as a means of providing resources directly to students so that they can access content at a variety of levels, but also includes the use of OER to help teachers learn more and gather a greater "toolbox" of resources to do this work with students, even without students' direct interactions with technology.
I can also easily see the connections between OER such as Google Docs and other collaboration tools for providing students with more" immediate and unambiguous feedback." Although it is not necessarily the same type of feedback that Csikszentmihalyi references (he has described this type of feedback as that which comes more from the activity itself), I believe that my students have had much greater success when using tools like Google Docs and getting real time feedback from me as I chat with them while they work on activities that range from persuasive writing to using Google Spreadsheets to compile information about historical immigration statistics. They are able to stay engaged for longer periods (thus, "concentration on the task at hand") when they are quickly receiving help, prompting questions and support at the same time they are involved in the project rather than waiting for a period of a day or more to continue on with next steps.
Finally, it seems that anyone engaged in a MOOC or open course of any kind must be engaged in an "autotelic experience" as they are often seeking these courses for their own purposes and are driven by their own agendas and goal rather than an outside requirement.
As I learn more about OER and best practices for technology integration, I look forward to continuing this quest to consider the ways in which students and teachers can use technology in ways which promote "flow" and increase intrinsic motivation for learning.
