The only other time I noticed my students being truly engaged and focused was when they have choices. We do the Daily 5 program. Daily 5 “is a structure that helps students develop the daily habits of reading, writing, and working independently that will lead to a lifetime of literacy independence” (Boushey, Moser 2013). .Students can pick what they are going to do for each section of time and in what order they wish to do them.
After watching Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s video, “Flow” (2010) a lot of what I was seeing in my classroom made sense. Students were engaged in the things that they chose to do and the activities they chose to do were at or just above their skill level. They were in control of what tasks they did and where they did those tasks. They had a sense of intrinsic reward when they completed a book, saw their finished picture, wrote a great piece, and saw their Lego creation.
I also noticed, while looking at the Flow diagram (retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) that many of my students are in the anxiety, worry, apathy, and boredom areas when we are doing regular content based lessons. It is hard to admit that even though I thought I was trying to make interesting lessons, I was failing many of my students.
Now, here comes the challenge…how do I carry over what I see them doing during centre time and Daily 5 and still keep my sanity? Well, I think doing more project- based learning (Markham, 2011) would be a great start. Students could help each other to stretch their skill levels. There is also the element of choice with which students have with being in control of how they achieve the project’s end result. There is also the intrinsic reward of knowing that each contributed to a project where there is some real impact.
Boushey, G., & Moser, J. (2013). The daily 5 cafe. Retrieved from http://www.thedailycafe.com/public/department104.cfm
Markham, T. (2011). Project Based Learning. Teacher Librarian, 39(2), 38-42.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi : Flow, (2010) Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjliwSJGDiU
Flow picure (psychology) retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology