‘Since the brain cannot pay attention to everything … uninteresting, boring or emotionally flat lessons simply will not be remembered.’
Launa Ellison in
‘What does the brain have
to do with learning?’
Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi "discovered" that stress and happiness do not just happen. They are not the result of random chance or good fortune. He states that happiness is not something that money can buy or be commanded. In How Adults Learn context his research is really important.
The positive implications of his research clearly demonstrate that happiness does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and reached individually. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. However, the opposite is also true and can lead to stress.
His findings became known as ‘FLOW’, which is the state that he found that would best describe how someone is when they reach the pinnacle of what he considered to be ‘Happiness’.
This ‘FLOW State is when we are truly absorbed in what we are doing, we forget about time passing, we don't feel tired, and we experience a kind of exhilaration and intensity, we lose our self-consciousness. In these moments, purposeful activity is more like "play" than "work“, where our behaviour is personally satisfying and socially appropriate, yet requires no rehearsal.
We all experience this from time to time, although, perhaps, not often enough. Indeed, Csikszentmihalyi points out how sad it is that so much of the time adults experience boredom or frustration in their work activities.
Flow is a structure that humans use to construct a focused completely enjoyable experience.
What Csikszentmihalyi found was that we all enjoy a challenge, provided we THINK that this stretch is achievable and possible, as well as perceiving that we have the ability to rise to the challenge. When those conditions are met then FLOW will occur.
Flow is where we perceive a challenge and perceive ourselves capable to rise to that challenge. Conversely, where neither of these are in place then we experience the opposite, unhappiness, anxiety, boredom and the like. Flow is the balance between perceived skills and perceived challenge, whilst the opposite is the major precursor for stress.
The diagram shows the different emotional experiences that we all have in relation to Csikszentmihalyi’s model. In simple terms the greener the box the better, the redder the box the higher the likely levels of stress.
So stress then, is intrinsically triggered by our perception of the world in which we work. Interestingly, the research shows that boredom or a lack of challenge is also likely to create a stressful situation.
trainer who understands the conditions that make people want to learn is in a position to turn learning activities into flow experiences. When the experience becomes intrinsically rewarding, delegates' motivation is engaged and they are on their way to experiencing a self-propelled acquisition of knowledge.
Fortunately, many trainers intuitively know that the best way to achieve their goals is to enlist students' interest. They do this by being sensitive to students' goals and desires, and they are thus able to articulate the pedagogical (teaching) goals as meaningful challenges. They empower students to take control of their learning; they provide clear feedback to the students' efforts without threatening their egos and without making them self-conscious. They help students concentrate and get immersed in the symbolic world of the subject matter. As a result, good trainers allow people to enjoy learning and their students will then continue to face the world with curiosity and interest.
OVERCOMOING THE STRESS OF LEARNING
How Adults Learn utilises the Csikszentmihalyi model we therefore need to ensure that learners perceive that they are in CONTROL of their learning. This can be a delicate balance of invitation to learn by providing positive and useful consequences to learning and advising of the negative consequences of not learning. Organisations have requirements from training, yet our experience is that people ‘sent’ to a course rarely learn, they have no ‘control’ and cannot perceive the use for it. Overly controlled content and process by organisations increases stress, reduces the learning and reduces the effectiveness of the individual, organisation and the learner.
Launa Ellison in
‘What does the brain have
to do with learning?’
Dr Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi "discovered" that stress and happiness do not just happen. They are not the result of random chance or good fortune. He states that happiness is not something that money can buy or be commanded. In How Adults Learn context his research is really important.
The positive implications of his research clearly demonstrate that happiness does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated and reached individually. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. However, the opposite is also true and can lead to stress.
His findings became known as ‘FLOW’, which is the state that he found that would best describe how someone is when they reach the pinnacle of what he considered to be ‘Happiness’.
This ‘FLOW State is when we are truly absorbed in what we are doing, we forget about time passing, we don't feel tired, and we experience a kind of exhilaration and intensity, we lose our self-consciousness. In these moments, purposeful activity is more like "play" than "work“, where our behaviour is personally satisfying and socially appropriate, yet requires no rehearsal.
We all experience this from time to time, although, perhaps, not often enough. Indeed, Csikszentmihalyi points out how sad it is that so much of the time adults experience boredom or frustration in their work activities.
Flow is a structure that humans use to construct a focused completely enjoyable experience.
What Csikszentmihalyi found was that we all enjoy a challenge, provided we THINK that this stretch is achievable and possible, as well as perceiving that we have the ability to rise to the challenge. When those conditions are met then FLOW will occur.
Flow is where we perceive a challenge and perceive ourselves capable to rise to that challenge. Conversely, where neither of these are in place then we experience the opposite, unhappiness, anxiety, boredom and the like. Flow is the balance between perceived skills and perceived challenge, whilst the opposite is the major precursor for stress.
The diagram shows the different emotional experiences that we all have in relation to Csikszentmihalyi’s model. In simple terms the greener the box the better, the redder the box the higher the likely levels of stress.
So stress then, is intrinsically triggered by our perception of the world in which we work. Interestingly, the research shows that boredom or a lack of challenge is also likely to create a stressful situation.
trainer who understands the conditions that make people want to learn is in a position to turn learning activities into flow experiences. When the experience becomes intrinsically rewarding, delegates' motivation is engaged and they are on their way to experiencing a self-propelled acquisition of knowledge.
Fortunately, many trainers intuitively know that the best way to achieve their goals is to enlist students' interest. They do this by being sensitive to students' goals and desires, and they are thus able to articulate the pedagogical (teaching) goals as meaningful challenges. They empower students to take control of their learning; they provide clear feedback to the students' efforts without threatening their egos and without making them self-conscious. They help students concentrate and get immersed in the symbolic world of the subject matter. As a result, good trainers allow people to enjoy learning and their students will then continue to face the world with curiosity and interest.
OVERCOMOING THE STRESS OF LEARNING
How Adults Learn utilises the Csikszentmihalyi model we therefore need to ensure that learners perceive that they are in CONTROL of their learning. This can be a delicate balance of invitation to learn by providing positive and useful consequences to learning and advising of the negative consequences of not learning. Organisations have requirements from training, yet our experience is that people ‘sent’ to a course rarely learn, they have no ‘control’ and cannot perceive the use for it. Overly controlled content and process by organisations increases stress, reduces the learning and reduces the effectiveness of the individual, organisation and the learner.
The good learning process includes a positive design intervention to help engender flow state. We also positively design in anti-stress checks.
The process of designing a good learning environment has often been compared to a game, where the delegates happen to learn the technical ideas almost without realising. Asking people to rise to a challenge and rewarding them is a classic Accelerated Learning process that can be used. Whilst it may seem childish asking someone to stand up and do something and offer a cuddly toy as a prize, it really does work and reduce stress. We also consider how our process can be perceived as delegates first arrive on course. It may vary from “this is brilliant” to “OH NO, I hate this stuff”. Simple strategies are employed to help overcome the negatives and enhance the positives. For instance, an explanation of the learning environment set up, really does help, asking whether the delegates prefer to have fun or be bored also helps their perception to move towards ‘this might be enjoyable’.
Trainers must also be alert to the different emotional states in the room and take action when negative states are spotted. Bored delegates don’t learn – they simply need more of a challenge, whilst frightened delegates probably need slightly less of a challenge. The model is a simple way to diagnose the intervention. Our research also indicates that many of the training courses that fail to gain long term learning retention operate a ‘stress’ based learning environment. Paying attention to the challenge and skills construct does improve long term retention.
Dr. Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced :cheek–sent–me–lie) is professor of Human Development and Education at the University of Chicago, where he was formerly chairman of the Department of Psychology and Chairman of Human Development. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Maine, and also at universities in Finland, Brazil, Canada, and Italy. He currently serves on the Child Labour Advisory Committee of the United States Department of Labour and the Centre for Giftedness of the Federal Department of Education.
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