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This interactive brain model is powered by the Wellcome Trust and developed by Matt Wimsatt and Jack Simpson; reviewed by John Morrison, Patrick Hof, and Edward Lein.
Structure descriptions were written by Levi Gadye and Alexis Wnuk and Jane Roskams.
Copyright © Society for Neuroscience (2017). Users may copy images and text, but must provide attribution to the Society for Neuroscience if an image and/or text is transmitted to another party, or if an image and/or text is used or cited in User's work.

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This interactive brain model is powered by the Wellcome Trust and developed by Matt Wimsatt and Jack Simpson; reviewed by John Morrison, Patrick Hof, and Edward Lein. Structure descriptions were written by Levi Gadye and Alexis Wnuk and Jane Roskams. Copyright © Society for Neuroscience (2017).

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http://www.pensierocritico.eu/neuroplasticita.html
http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/

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How Does Neuroplasticity Work? [Infographic] - NICABM

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This free infographic provides a simple explanation on how neuroplasticity works. Perfect for clients and clinicians alike.

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Neurons in a culture dish trying to form connections with each other. Sped up to show 8 hours in 1 second. Bright spots are the neuron nuclei. We have 100 billion of these in our brain. Amazing. Fonte:

Lex Fridman, AI researcher. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Stati Uniti d'America

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Pagina di divulgazione con rif. alla ricerca in bibliografia

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Here you can see two neurons sensing one another and connecting in a petri dish.

There are 86 billion neurons in the #brain, and they use these webbed hand like structures (“growth cones”) to search for and connect to other neurons or body parts as we develop

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Here you can see two neurons sensing one another and connecting in a petri dish. 

There are 86 billion neurons in the #brain, and they use these webbed hand like structures (“growth cones”) to search for and connect to other neurons or body parts as we develop 
@AcademicChatter

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Here you can see two neurons sensing one another and connecting in a petri dish. 

There are 86 billion neurons in the #brain, and they use these webbed hand like structures (“growth cones”) to search for and connect to other neurons or body parts as we develop 
@AcademicChatter https://t.co/TOFLqUThho

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Here you can see two neurons sensing one another and connecting in a petri dish.

There are 86 billion neurons in the #brain, and they use these webbed hand like structures (“growth cones”) to search for and connect to other neurons or body parts as we develop @AcademicChatter pic.twitter.com/TOFLqUThho
— Dr Lila Landowski (@rockatscientist) November 14, 2019

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Here you can see two neurons sensing one another and connecting in a petri dish. 

There are 86 billion neurons in the #brain, and they use these webbed hand like structures (“growth cones”) to search for and connect to other neurons or body parts as we develop 
@AcademicChatter https://t.co/TOFLqUThho

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.original_text
Here you can see two neurons sensing one another and connecting in a petri dish. 

There are 86 billion neurons in the #brain, and they use these webbed hand like structures (“growth cones”) to search for and connect to other neurons or body parts as we develop 
@AcademicChatter https://t.co/TOFLqUThho

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.metadata.attachment_props.text
Here you can see two neurons sensing one another and connecting in a petri dish. 

There are 86 billion neurons in the #brain, and they use these webbed hand like structures (“growth cones”) to search for and connect to other neurons or body parts as we develop 
@AcademicChatter

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Grazie ad Elisabetta Nepa e a Luana Lucci per la segnalazione e per la condivisione

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MATRICE EVOLUTIVA DELLE FUNZIONI ESECUTIVE  (traduzione a cura di Mariachiara Cedolini e Viviana Giannico)

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MATRICE EVOLUTIVA DELLE FUNZIONI ESECUTIVE  (traduzione a cura di Mariachiara Cedolini e Viviana Giannico)

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Sebastian Seung: Io sono il mio connettoma: Sebastian Seung

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Sebastian Seung sta lavorando ad un progetto molto ambizioso: mappare un modello del cervello studiando le connessioni tra ciascun neurone. Chiama questo modello il nostro "connettoma", che è tanto personale quanto il nostro genoma-- e la sua comprensione potrebbe aprire una nuova strada alla comprensione dei nostri cervelli e delle nostre menti.

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Osservazioni utili adattabili anche ai bambini https://medium.com/exponential-imaginative-training/come-sviluppare-la-flessibilit%C3%A0-cognitiva-una-competenza-centrale-nei-periodi-di-transizione-per-4ded27a3f897
Fonte https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/18011/ctrstreadtechrepv01988i00441_opt.pdf

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Traduzione a cura di Elisa Mor e Patrizia Congedi

FONTE http://www.evidencebasedteaching.org.au/evidence-based-teaching-strategies/

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Human Connectome Project | Mapping the human brain connectivity

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The Human Connectome Project (HCP) Consortium is pleased to have had its graphical renderings of brain connectivity chosen by Grammy Award winning international recording artists Muse (www.muse.mu) for the cover of their latest album 'The 2nd Law.' The images selected illustrate the complexity of the neural wiring of the human brain as computed using sophisticated [...]

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Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science

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This book provides new insights about learning by synthesising existing and emerging findings from cognitive and brain science.

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Did you know Different Brains has a vast resource section, where you can find information on many Neurodiversity topics, including: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Asperger's Syndrome, Anxiety, Concussions, Depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and many others?

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Supporting Neurodiversity From Autism to Alzheimer's and All Brains In Between! Different Brains ® is a 501C3 nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting the understanding and acceptance of the basic variations in the human brain known as neurodiversity; ending the stigma attached to the relat ...

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NETWORKS ATTENTIVI - BENSO

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Si tratta di un corso rivolto ai docenti di ogni ordine e grado, articolato in 12 moduli sulle azioni didattiche inclusive, per un totale di 25 ore di formazione certificata.

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Tim Urban: Nella mente di un maestro della procrastinazione

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Tim Urban sa che la procrastinazione non ha senso, ma non è mai riuscito a scrollarsi di dosso l'abitudine di aspettare fino all'ultimo minuto per fare le cose.

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Link all'articolo di ricerca https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315799090_The_Theory_of_the_Five_Pillars

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From the author of Neuromyths, a revolutionary look at teaching and learning via the logical pathways of the brain. A review of the research on brain networks reveals, surprisingly, that there are just five basic pillars through which all learning takes place: Symbols, Patterns, Order, Categories, and Relationships. Dr. Tokuhama-Espinosa proposes that redesigning school curriculum around these five pillars―whether to augment or replace traditional subject categories―could enable students to develop the transdisciplinary problem-solving skills that are often touted as the ultimate goal of education. Heralding a potential paradigm shift in education, Five Pillars of the Mind explores how aligning instruction with the brain's natural design might just be the key to improving students' learning outcomes.

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Five Pillars of the Mind: Redesigning Education to Suit the Brain

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Five Pillars of the Mind: Redesigning Education to Suit the Brain [Tokuhama-Espinosa, Tracey] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Five Pillars of the Mind: Redesigning Education to Suit the Brain

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SIMONE WEIL- SUL BUON USO DEGLI STUDI SCOLASTICI

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SIMONE WEIL- SUL BUON USO DEGLI STUDI SCOLASTICI

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https://www.adelphi.it/libro/9788845923111

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SIMONE WEIL- SUL BUON USO DEGLI STUDI SCOLASTICI

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https://www.differentbrains.org/resources/

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OECD - Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science

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OECD - Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science

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Understanding the Brain: The Birth of a Learning Science

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This book provides new insights about learning by synthesising existing and emerging findings from cognitive and brain science.

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What is a mind? Get answers with Prof. Mark Solms - FutureLearn blog

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Professor Mark Solms of the University of Cape Town discusses how he approaches one of the great mysteries of our time - the question what is the mind?

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https://www.pensierocritico.eu/evidence-based-education.html
http://www.carocci.it/index.php?option=com_carocci&task=schedalibro&Itemid=72&isbn=9788874667000

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Hattie Ranking - Interactive Visualization

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Just click on the legend to show/hide/compare effect sizes from different Visible Learning publications. The chart will be updated automatically.

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Catharine Young: How memories form and how we lose them

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Think back to a really vivid memory. Got it? Now try to remember what you had for lunch three weeks ago. That second memory probably isn't as strong- but why not? Why do we remember some things, and not others? And why do memories eventually fade?

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Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi si chiede "Cosa rende la vita degna di essere vissuta?". Dopo aver notato che il denaro non ci rende felici, ha iniziato ad osservare coloro che trovano piacere e soddisfazione duratura in attività che creano uno stato di Flow o Esperienza Ottimale

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Mihaly Csikszentimihaly : sull'Esperienza di Flow (o Esperienza Ottimale)

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Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi si chiede "Cosa rende la vita degna di essere vissuta?". Dopo aver notato che il denaro non ci rende felici, ha iniziato ad osservare coloro che trovano piacere e soddisfazione duratura in attività che creano uno stato di Flow o Esperienza Ottimale

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La neuroplasticità è alla base dell’apprendimento umano dalla nascita alla vecchiaia

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L’utilizzo del cervello, mentre si fa esperienza di qualcosa, ne modifica costantemente l’architettura, è anche base delle differenze esistenti tra persone.

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La neuroplasticità è alla base dell’apprendimento umano dalla nascita alla vecchiaia

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L’utilizzo del cervello, mentre si fa esperienza di qualcosa, ne modifica costantemente l’architettura, è anche base delle differenze esistenti tra persone.

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The Brain with David Eagleman investigates the scientific story of why we feel and what we think. By asking questions like "Who am I?" and "Who's in control?" The Brain allows viewers to explore how our brains control our behavior, and what that means for humanity.

In this interactive, viewers can explore clips from each of the six episodes of the show. Whether hoping to understand how the brain develops or how it perceives the world around us, viewers can gain a deeper understanding of one of the body's most complicated and essential organs.

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The aging brain & the concept of "cognitive reserve"

As the brain ages, it can begin to deteriorate, and this can effect who we are. At Rush University Medical Center, research into the aging brain is focused on studying a relatively stable population of nuns and priests whose brains are dissected after their death. The results of each post-mortem is cross referenced with detailed data about each individual when they were alive. The results of the study reveal that being physically and cognitively active can make a difference to whether or not we will exhibit the signs of age-related brain pathologies. The theory of 'cognitive reserve' posits that in an active brain, as areas of the aging brain deteriorate or fail, other areas can compensate.

Subtopics:

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As the brain ages, it can begin to deteriorate, and this can effect who we are. At Rush University Medical Center, research into the aging brain is focused on studying a relatively stable population of nuns and priests whose brains are dissected after their death.

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videoNon è detto che una scuola che ha ottenuto punteggi alti alle Prove INVALSI sia in realtà così buona, né che una scuola che ha ottenuto punteggi bassi non lo sia.

I risultati degli studenti possono infatti essere influenzati da fattori che non dipendono affatto dalla scuola, o che non dipendono interamente da questa: la preparazione precedente degli allievi, il contesto familiare di provenienza, il contesto sociale, culturale ed economico più allargato e altri fattori che possono interferire con la vita di una persona.

Ogni docente sa infatti che insegnare ai bravi - o ai più motivati, o ai più fortunati - è meno complesso, ma che spesso ci si trova invece in situazioni anche molto difficili.

Mentre una scuola con risultati alti potrebbe aver aggiunto poco o nulla a quella che sarebbe stata la naturale evoluzione di ragazzi già preparati e motivati, una scuola con risultati più modesti potrebbe avere invece migliorato la preparazione dei propri studenti nonostante una situazione di partenza molto difficile, ed essere in realtà più efficace di quella che ha avuto il risultato più alto.

Una misura del cambiamento
Come valutare quindi in modo più appropriato l'efficacia della didattica e dell'organizzazione della scuola, in situazioni tanto diverse?
Una prima soluzione consiste nel tenere conto proprio del contesto familiare da cui provengono gli allievi, identificato attraverso il questionario famiglie e le informazioni fornite dalle segreterie.

Di recente, però, l'INVALSI ha messo a punto uno strumento statistico molto raffinato per valutare anche il cosiddetto effetto scuola, ovvero il contributo dell'istituto scolastico al cambiamento del livello di competenze degli allievi.

Un'innovazione resa possibile dalla disponibilità, dopo oltre dieci anni di Prove INVALSI, dei risultati dei ragazzi all'ingresso e all'uscita dai cicli scolastici.

L'effetto scuola valuta il peso dei fattori esterni alla scuola rispetto a quelli interni, e si calcola sottraendo al punteggio ottenuto dagli studenti alla fine del ciclo scolastico quello d'ingresso, ottenuto al termine del ciclo precedente, tenendo conto anche di quello che gli allievi possedevano al momento dell'ingresso.

I fattori esterni (non controllati) e interni (controllati) dalla scuola

Questo viene stimato in base a una serie di fattori individuali e sociali relativi al contesto personale e scolastico, come ad esempio il genere, la nazionalità, la data di arrivo della famiglia in Italia, il contesto socioeconomico medio della scuola frequentata, il fatto di essere in anticipo o in ritardo nel percorso scolastico, il numero di ore dedicate all'italiano e alla matematica, ecc.

Ciascun fattore viene pesato grazie a un modello statistico.

La scuola che aggiunge valore

Il risultato è una stima che indica l'effetto dell'istituto scolastico sulla preparazione degli studenti rispetto alla media degli altri istituti, e che è quindi un fattore molto importante del quale tenere conto nell'autovalutazione dell'istituto stesso.

I risultati vengono restituiti alle scuole in forma grafica su base nazionale, rispetto alla macro area geografica e alla regione di appartenenza:

La restituzione dell'effetto scuola

Un istituto che ha ricevuto un punteggio relativamente basso potrebbe aver avuto un effetto scuola positivo, perché rispetto ad altri istituti che operano in contesti simili potrebbe aver migliorato considerevolmente la preparazione degli studenti, anche se questa avrebbe bisogno di un ulteriore miglioramento.
La scuola che funziona bene infatti non è solo quella che ottiene risultati eccellenti.
È anche quella che, nonostante condizioni difficili, ha saputo comunque migliorare la preparazione degli allievi, riducendo le disuguaglianze di partenza.

Perché uno dei compiti fondamentali della scuola è proprio quello di dare a tutti gli studenti le stesse opportunità.

Approfondimenti

Se hai trovato interessante questo contenuto puoi iscriverti alla newsletter mensile di INVALSI per ricevere via mail i nostri aggiornamenti.
Voglio ricevere gli aggiornamenti di INVALSIopen

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videoNon è detto che una scuola che ha ottenuto punteggi alti alle Prove INVALSI sia in realtà così buona, né che una scuola che ha ottenuto punteggi bassi non lo sia.

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There is one session available:

Fundamentals of Neuroscience is a three-courseseries that explores the structure and function of the nervous system-from the inner workings of a single nerve cell to the staggering complexity of the brain and the social interactions they enable.

In this first course, you'll learn how individual neurons use electricity to transmit information. You'll build a neuron, piece by piece, using interactive simulations, then travel around Harvard's campus, where you'll see the inner workings of a lab and learn how to conduct DIY neuroscience experiments on your own.

Join us as we study the electrical properties in individual neurons, building a foundation for understanding the function of the entire nervous system.

Fundamentals of bioelectricity

The importance of resting potential

The properties of passive membranes

Action potentials, their currents, and their role in the nervous system

How you can do neuroscience in your home

Lesson1: The Resting Potential
The nervous system functions by sending electrical signals between neurons. To begin our study of the nervous system, we will focus on a single neuron 'at rest,' which has an electrical potential across its membrane. We will understand the ionic basis underlying this electrical potential, and how to calculate it ourselves.

Lesson 2: Passive Membrane Properties
Electrical signals between neurons can be sent through changes in their membrane potentials. In order to more deeply understand these electrical signals, we will first study the electrical properties of the neuron itself. We will examine the resistive and capacitive properties of the neuron, how these properties arise from biological factors, and how these properties influence how a neuron responds to electrical signals.

Lesson3: Action Potentials
In this lesson we will investigate one of the fundamental ways that neurons send electrical signals, through an all-or-nothing process called the action potential. The action potential is generated by the precise opening and closing of voltage-gated channels that cause specific changes to the neuron's membrane potential. We'll develop an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of these channels and the ionic currents behind the action potential.

Lesson 4: Action Potential Propagation
Neurons send electrical signals through action potentials moving down their axons. In order to further develop our understanding of the way neurons generate and send electrical signals, we will integrate our knowledge of the electrical properties of the neuron and the action potential itself. This will allos us to understand how the nervous system has solved the problem of fast and reliable communication.

Lesson 5: DIY Labs
Seeing or measuring something with your own hands is often the best way to learn! We've spent a lot of time discussing the electrical properties of neurons, and along the way you've seen many different demonstrations. You can perform some of these experiments, as well as others we haven't shown yet, yourself, using an inexpensive piece of equipment known as a SpikerBox.

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HarvardX requires individuals who enroll in its courses on edX to abide by the terms of the edX honor code. HarvardX will take appropriate corrective action in response to violations of the edX honor code, which may include dismissal from the HarvardX course; revocation of any certificates received for the HarvardX course; or other remedies as circumstances warrant. No refunds will be issued in the case of corrective action for such violations. Enrollees who are taking HarvardX courses as part of another program will also be governed by the academic policies of those programs.

Research statement
By registering as an online learner in our open online courses, you are also participating in research intended to enhance HarvardX's instructional offerings as well as the quality of learning and related sciences worldwide. In the interest of research, you may be exposed to some variations in the course materials. HarvardX does not use learner data for any purpose beyond the University's stated missions of education and research. For purposes of research, we may share information we collect from online learning activities, including Personally Identifiable Information, with researchers beyond Harvard. However, your Personally Identifiable Information will only be shared as permitted by applicable law, will be limited to what is necessary to perform the research, and will be subject to an agreement to protect the data. We may also share with the public or third parties aggregated information that does not personally identify you. Similarly, any research findings will be reported at the aggregate level and will not expose your personal identity.

Please read the edX Privacy Policy for more information regarding the processing, transmission, and use of data collected through the edX platform.

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Harvard University and HarvardX are committed to maintaining a safe and healthy educational and work environment in which no member of the community is excluded from participation in, denied the benefits of, or subjected to discrimination or harassment in our program. All members of the HarvardX community are expected to abide by Harvard policies on nondiscrimination, including sexual harassment, and the edX Terms of Service. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact harvardx@harvard.edu and/or report your experience through the edX contact form.

Interested in this course for your business or team?

Train your employees in the most in-demand topics, with edX for Business.

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Fundamentals of Neuroscience, Part 1: The Electrical Properties of the Neuron

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There is one session available: Fundamentals of Neuroscience is a three-courseseries that explores the structure and function of the nervous system-from the inner workings of a single nerve cell to the staggering complexity of the brain and the social interactions they enable. In this first course, you'll learn how individual neurons use electricity to transmit information.

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The Feuerstein Institute is an international educational, treatment and research center. Founded in 1965 by educational and developmental psychologist Reuven Feuerstein, the Feuerstein Institute's mission is to teach people to think, learn and better function.

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https://books.google.it/books?hl=it&lr=&id=K2kFCAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=FEUERSTEIN+MEDIATION+TYPES&ots=ZYMuYCetso&sig=WvC561Tnwpf84y2vHGTq95bCVAQ#v=onepage&q=FEUERSTEIN%20MEDIATION%20TYPES&f=false

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anche https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.591923/full
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn3817.epdf?sharing_token=aZ8T48E73b6MUSAnqTx5edRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0M0be_o0O1RytgcBvktJuMltxH4JzcKxB1u0T1VXQaEzOpK85dwD5v65ylPpNyZdozrPri6MBbMJP6ZWtNRy0meKIPdz7tLes_nqqKGlievjKqg-zPNxgr292FzQKrTnBuUCv2uJCgo7Zhgh619kj8Ov6t6r3kfSUURyYiI6jtVmaY_Q7jY-nWrSZNZWyyZ8Sc6fO0c06IIKxY6ZXU6iXH6DQeLPcp_jWiojcdCipHwc3ITSdGuMFQIGpbqlleSf_k%3D&tracking_referrer=bigthink.com

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Fake news has become a hot topic. But the deliberate disinformation of the general public via traditional outlets or social media goes beyond the news: there is also an alarming rise in "fake science." The brain and the mind feel extremely familiar. We do spend lots of our time inside our heads. That's why it's easy to disseminate false-but great sounding-information about the brain. This is what a neuromyth is: an erroneous belief about how the brain works that is held by a large number of people. Let's explore a few of them.

5 popular beliefs about the brain that are actually neuromyths

Neuroscience is pretty young-neuroimaging technologies have only been developed over the last twenty years. As a result, it's an ever-evolving field and it's pretty hard to separate fact from fiction. Here are a few of the most common neuromyths, how they came about, and why they're wrong.

1. We only use 10% of our brain. This neuromyth was the basis of at least two sci-fi films: Neil Burger's Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper and Luc Besson's Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson. The poster for Lucy doesn't shy away from this incorrect belief: "The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity," it says. People love this myth because it makes them feel good. It means that you may have some huge amount of untapped potential which could unlock should you use the right techniques or tools. Marketers also love this myth because it helps them sell dubious products that are supposed to let you access the remaining 90% of your brain capacity. First, there's lots of evidence showing that whatever an individual is doing-even if they're told to just lay down in the scanner and not do anything-pretty much all of the areas of the brain are active. Second, it makes no evolutionary sense to have an organ that is 90% unused. Especially when it comes to the brain, which uses a staggering 20% of the body's energy, despite being only 2% of its weight. The myth probably comes from William James, widely considered as the father of psychology, who wrote that it's unlikely most people would ever reach 10% of their potential. Somehow, this became 10% of their brain.

2. We're either right-brained or left-brained. Every day, there are businesses paying for workshops teaching their employees that they're either right-brained (artistic expression and creativity) or left-brained (logical thoughts and calculations). I don't have a reference to back this up and it may not be true, but it is a fact that many people do believe this and there are lots of books being sold that promote this very incorrect idea. But imaging studies show that both parts of the brain are active when people are engaged in creative tasks. There is absolutely no reason to think that certain forms of thinking-say creative versus rational thinking-are localised in a specific hemisphere of the brain. Want to have a good laugh? There's an article on WikiHow telling you to "breathe through your left nostril to activate your brain's right side" to exercise the right side of your brain. At least they admit that "it's not supported by rigorous science."

3. We have multiple intelligences. The Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner came up with the theory of multiple intelligences in the 1980s- and I say "came up with" because there wasn't any actual data involved with this theory: it was just Gardner's opinion that there are multiple intelligences with variable levels among people. He started with a list of seven "intelligences"-musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. But because it wasn't enough, he then added a few more (still without any data to back his claims): naturalistic, existential, and moral intelligence; he even suggested cooking intelligence and sexual intelligence as potential candidates. First, what Gardner calls intelligence could simply be called skills. Second, research shows that our skills are not broadly independent from one another. People who tend to do well on one type of test tend to do well in them all. That's called "general intelligence" and it has way more tangible evidence to support it than the theory of multiple intelligences. (quick note that the book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Gardner has nothing to do with my own mindframing method for mindful productivity)

4. IQ tests just tell you how good you are at doing IQ tests. This was one of the most surprising ones for me, because I did believe in this neuromyth before writing this article. And it's actually a lecture at King's College debunking this myth that prompted me to write this article. According to my lecturer (the amazing Dr Stuart Ritchie), while IQ tests are certainly flawed in all sorts of ways, they are some of the most reliable and predictive tests that exist in the whole of psychological science. A study with almost a million men who did an IQ test as part of their military service in Sweden showed that the higher the IQ, the longer they lived. I will write a whole article about this, but many studies have shown that IQ tests do predict mortality, as well as educational attainment, work success, physical and mental health, and many other things. The myth that IQ tests only tell you how good you are at IQ tests has been pretty much debunked.

5. People have different learning styles. I already mentioned this neuromyth in my article about learning how to learn. But it's worth mentioning again because it's also a pretty popular neuromyth. The learning style theory states that people differ in the way they learn, which is due to some innate property of their brains and that teaching should be customised to their particular learning style. According to that theory, some people have more of a visual learning style, others an auditory learning style, etc. It sounds elegant, but it's completely wrong. Research shows that changing the teaching method has no impact on students success based on their preferred learning style. In short, we do have a preferred learning style-one that feels more comfortable-but using another one has no impact on our performance. We don't have different learning styles, we just have different learning preferences.

There are many, many other neuromyths-and I may write a follow-up article. But what's crazy is that it's not only the general public that believes them.

The table above was adapted from a scientific paper about neuromyths. The first column lists common neuromyths. The researchers then asked people to state whether these were true or false. People were put into three groups: the general public, educators (such as teachers), and people with high neuroscience exposure-think scientists and doctors. You can see the percentage of them for each group that believed these neuromyths to be true. For example, 59% of the general public, 55% of educators, and 43% of individuals with high neuroscience exposure believe in The Mozart Effect, a theory which suggests that listening to classical music can boost our intelligence. Which is false.

Even more depressingly, 14% of people with high neuroscience exposure believe that we only use 10% of our brain. Overall, the research found that on average 46% of the most educated people when it comes to the brain believed in these neuromyths.

The worst thing? Research shows that more education may not be able to fix this. Taking an educational psychology course does improve general knowledge of neuroscience but does not reduce belief in neuromyths. Neuromyths really do seem to be sticky. They feed into our desire to believe that everyone can be good at something, that we have untapped potential, that we are unique.

While it has been shown that it's incredibly hard to change people's mind when it comes to neuromyths, I hope this article will be a small contribution that may educate individuals who are willing to abandon some strongly-held beliefs about the way their brain works.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Neuromyths: debunking the misconceptions about our brains

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fake news has become a hot topic. But the deliberate disinformation of the general public via traditional outlets or social media goes beyond the news: there is also an alarming rise in "fake science." The brain and the mind feel extremely familiar. We do spend lots of our time inside our heads.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scopri gli 8 punti fondamentali per una concezione antropocentrica dell’intelligenza artificiale

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
L’indicatore ESCS per una valutazione più equa - INVALSIopen

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L’indicatore ESCS definisce lo status sociale, economico e culturale delle famiglie degli studenti che partecipano alle Prove INVALSI e ad altre ricerche.

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https://books.google.it/books?hl=it&lr=&id=K2kFCAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=FEUERSTEIN+MEDIATION+TYPES&ots=ZYMuYCetso&sig=WvC561Tnwpf84y2vHGTq95bCVAQ#v=onepage&q=FEUERSTEIN%20MEDIATION%20TYPES&f=false

# data[].attributes.headline
Gli studenti svantaggiati e le disuguaglianze educative a scuola

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Gli studenti svantaggiati e le disuguaglianze educative a scuola

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L'aspetto più odioso della povertà educativa è il modo in cui le disuguaglianze di partenza si tramandano di generazione in generazione. Dove nasci e in che famiglia cresci fa la differenza sul tipo di opportunità e stimoli cui accedi. Con conseguenze sui successivi risultati scolastici ma soprattutto sul futuro dei giovani che vengono dalle famiglie svantaggiate.

Per questa ragione, in un mondo che richiede livelli di conoscenza e competenze sempre più elevate, una delle sfide più importanti per il sistema scolastico è l'equità. Garantire a tutti, a prescindere dal reddito e dalla condizione della famiglia, le stesse possibilità, in particolare per chi viene da una situazione di svantaggio.

Come nascono e si tramandano le disuguaglianze nell'istruzione

Tutte le ricerche sul tema, a livello internazionale quelle di Ocse-Pisa, per l'Italia quelle di Invalsi, indicano la fortissima influenza dello status socio-economico-culturale della famiglia sui risultati degli studenti.

Lo svantaggio nei risultati scolastici dei ragazzi che provengono dalle famiglie povere emerge verso i 10 anni. Esso è il prodotto delle diverse opportunità ricevute, a partire dai primi anni di vita. L'aver ricevuto o meno l'istruzione pre-scolare, l'accesso all'offerta culturale e educativa, la scuola frequentata. Il gap si allarga negli anni successivi, riproducendo le disuguaglianze di partenza.

Questa relazione non è necessariamente causa-effetto, data l'esistenza di eccezioni (i ragazzi top perfomers provenienti da situazioni di svantaggio). Ma soprattutto non è inevitabile, dato che esistono sistemi scolastici più o meno equi. Ad esempio, stando ai dati Ocse-Pisa, in Estonia e Finlandia gli studenti svantaggiati raggiungono un punteggio medio superiore a quello considerato sufficiente.

Non si può dire altrettanto per gli altri stati europei. In media, in 26 paesi su 28 gli studenti con uno status socio-economico-culturale più basso si trovano sistematicamente al di sotto del punteggio considerato sufficiente per le scienze. Una tendenza che riguarda anche l'Italia, collocata nella seconda metà della classifica dei paesi Ue.

Una spirale per cui chi nasce svantaggiato resta indietro.

Questi dati aiutano a esemplificare il processo descritto in precedenza. Se chi viene da un contesto più deprivato non arriva alle competenze minime richieste nel mondo di oggi, in futuro avrà più difficoltà a trovare un'occupazione stabile e a sottrarsi dall'esclusione sociale. Una tendenza che preclude ogni possibilità di mobilità sociale, soprattutto se si confrontano i risultati dei ragazzi svantaggiati con quelli dei top performers nei diversi paesi. Ovvero gli studenti che si trovano nel primo quartile per il livello di competenza ottenuto.

L'Italia, tra i maggiori paesi dell'Unione europea, spicca per due elementi. Da un lato, il secondo peggior risultato medio (a un punto dalla Francia) degli studenti svantaggiati. Dall'altro, nonostante il piazzamento negativo, il divario è ridotto a causa del risultato peggiore (in media) degli stessi top performers. Tendenze da monitorare, soprattutto alla luce delle differenze territoriali presenti nel nostro paese.

I risultati dei ragazzi svantaggiati tra nord e sud

In Italia la relazione tra status socio-economico-familiare e i livelli di apprendimento rilevati nei test Invalsi si verifica per tutti i livelli di istruzione, dalle elementari alle superiori, e in tutte le materie esaminate.

I risultati in italiano degli alunni del terzo anno delle medie inferiori mostrano in modo piuttosto nitido questo tipo di disuguaglianze. In più di un caso su 2 (53,7%) gli studenti provenienti dalle famiglie deprivate non raggiungono un livello sufficiente. Solo il 17,5% raggiunge i risultati migliori (livelli di apprendimento 4 e 5) contro il 54% di quelli con famiglie più benestanti.

L'impatto di queste disuguaglianze cambia notevolmente tra le diverse aree del paese. Nel nord-est gli alunni svantaggiati che ottengono risultati negativi sono il 43,9%, quota che sale attorno al 50% nel nord-ovest e nel centro. Al sud e nelle isole questa cifra è molto più alta e raggiunge quasi il 65%.

Un dato che si inserisce in una tendenza più generale, dal momento che nel mezzogiorno è più alta la quota di risultati insufficienti anche per i ragazzi delle famiglie più benestanti (22,5% contro il 12,1% del nord-ovest). Ma che colpisce ancora più per gli studenti che vengono da un contesto più difficile. Perché per molti di loro la scuola è l'unica opportunità che avranno per migliorare la propria condizione.

E non è un problema solo degli studenti. È una questione che investe tutta la società, perché le prospettive future del paese passano anche dall'innalzamento dei livelli di istruzione, e da quanto la scuola è in grado di colmare le disuguaglianze.

I risultati Invalsi nelle città con più famiglie con figli in disagio

Le indagini Ocse-Pisa e quelle Invalsi ci aiutano ad inquadrare le tendenze internazionali e a capire meglio l'equità del sistema nel nostro paese, da nord a sud. Purtroppo allo stato attuale non esistono molti elementi ulteriori per approfondire l'analisi in chiave locale.

Un'esigenza che invece sarebbe particolarmente importante, soprattutto se si vuole affrontare il tema delle disuguaglianze educative in una prospettiva territoriale, confrontando le diverse realtà locali.

Preso atto di questi limiti, con i dati attualmente esistenti comunque possiamo confrontare due aspetti che raccontano la condizione dei ragazzi e i loro risultati negli apprendimenti. Per questi ultimi, ricorriamo ai dati delle statistiche sperimentali di Istat, che descrivono i livelli medi nelle competenze alfabetiche e numeriche almeno per i comuni capoluogo. Per quanto riguarda la condizione sociale e familiare, un indicatore utile è la quota di famiglie in potenziale disagio economico, basato sulle informazioni raccolte durante l'ultimo censimento.

La tendenza emerge abbastanza chiaramente: al crescere della quota di famiglie in disagio i punteggi medi rilevati nei test Invalsi sono più bassi. Infatti se isoliamo i 20 capoluoghi con i punteggi in competenza numerica più bassi, in 14 casi coincidono con i 20 comuni con più famiglie in disagio. Alcuni esempi: Napoli, primo capoluogo per percentuale di famiglie in disagio, è 100esima nei risultati Invalsi. Catania, seconda per disagio, è 103esima; Palermo, quarta per disagio, è 101esima; Crotone, quinta per disagio, 104esima per competenze.

Questa dinamica è pericolosa, perché mostra come restino indietro i ragazzi dei territori già più deprivati. Con conseguenze negative per il futuro dei più giovani, ma anche dell'intero paese.

Scarica, condividi e riutilizza i dati

I contenuti dell'Osservatorio povertà educativa #conibambini sono realizzati da openpolis con l'impresa sociale Con i Bambini nell'ambito del fondo per il contrasto della povertà educativa minorile. Mettiamo a disposizione in formato aperto i dati utilizzati nell'articolo. Li abbiamo raccolti e trattati così da poterli analizzare in relazione con altri dataset di fonte pubblica, con l'obiettivo di creare un'unica banca dati territoriale sui servizi. Possono essere riutilizzati liberamente per analisi, iniziative di data journalism o anche per semplice consultazione. Le fonti dei dati sulle competenze sono Invalsi e Istat (statistiche sperimentali).

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Gli studenti svantaggiati e le disuguaglianze educative a scuola - Openpolis

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È ancora forte la relazione tra i risultati degli alunni e la condizione economica, sociale e culturale della famiglia di origine. Una dinamica pericolosa, perché lascia indietro i ragazzi che vengono dai contesti più difficili e in prospettiva i territori più deprivati.

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anche https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.591923/full
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn3817.epdf?sharing_token=aZ8T48E73b6MUSAnqTx5edRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0M0be_o0O1RytgcBvktJuMltxH4JzcKxB1u0T1VXQaEzOpK85dwD5v65ylPpNyZdozrPri6MBbMJP6ZWtNRy0meKIPdz7tLes_nqqKGlievjKqg-zPNxgr292FzQKrTnBuUCv2uJCgo7Zhgh619kj8Ov6t6r3kfSUURyYiI6jtVmaY_Q7jY-nWrSZNZWyyZ8Sc6fO0c06IIKxY6ZXU6iXH6DQeLPcp_jWiojcdCipHwc3ITSdGuMFQIGpbqlleSf_k%3D&tracking_referrer=bigthink.com

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Fake news has become a hot topic. But the deliberate disinformation of the general public via traditional outlets or social media goes beyond the news: there is also an alarming rise in "fake science." The brain and the mind feel extremely familiar. We do spend lots of our time inside our heads. That's why it's easy to disseminate false-but great sounding-information about the brain. This is what a neuromyth is: an erroneous belief about how the brain works that is held by a large number of people. Let's explore a few of them.

5 popular beliefs about the brain that are actually neuromyths

Neuroscience is pretty young-neuroimaging technologies have only been developed over the last twenty years. As a result, it's an ever-evolving field and it's pretty hard to separate fact from fiction. Here are a few of the most common neuromyths, how they came about, and why they're wrong.

1. We only use 10% of our brain. This neuromyth was the basis of at least two sci-fi films: Neil Burger's Limitless, starring Bradley Cooper and Luc Besson's Lucy, starring Scarlett Johansson. The poster for Lucy doesn't shy away from this incorrect belief: "The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity," it says. People love this myth because it makes them feel good. It means that you may have some huge amount of untapped potential which could unlock should you use the right techniques or tools. Marketers also love this myth because it helps them sell dubious products that are supposed to let you access the remaining 90% of your brain capacity. First, there's lots of evidence showing that whatever an individual is doing-even if they're told to just lay down in the scanner and not do anything-pretty much all of the areas of the brain are active. Second, it makes no evolutionary sense to have an organ that is 90% unused. Especially when it comes to the brain, which uses a staggering 20% of the body's energy, despite being only 2% of its weight. The myth probably comes from William James, widely considered as the father of psychology, who wrote that it's unlikely most people would ever reach 10% of their potential. Somehow, this became 10% of their brain.

2. We're either right-brained or left-brained. Every day, there are businesses paying for workshops teaching their employees that they're either right-brained (artistic expression and creativity) or left-brained (logical thoughts and calculations). I don't have a reference to back this up and it may not be true, but it is a fact that many people do believe this and there are lots of books being sold that promote this very incorrect idea. But imaging studies show that both parts of the brain are active when people are engaged in creative tasks. There is absolutely no reason to think that certain forms of thinking-say creative versus rational thinking-are localised in a specific hemisphere of the brain. Want to have a good laugh? There's an article on WikiHow telling you to "breathe through your left nostril to activate your brain's right side" to exercise the right side of your brain. At least they admit that "it's not supported by rigorous science."

3. We have multiple intelligences. The Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner came up with the theory of multiple intelligences in the 1980s- and I say "came up with" because there wasn't any actual data involved with this theory: it was just Gardner's opinion that there are multiple intelligences with variable levels among people. He started with a list of seven "intelligences"-musical-rhythmic, visual-spatial, verbal-linguistic, logical-mathematical, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. But because it wasn't enough, he then added a few more (still without any data to back his claims): naturalistic, existential, and moral intelligence; he even suggested cooking intelligence and sexual intelligence as potential candidates. First, what Gardner calls intelligence could simply be called skills. Second, research shows that our skills are not broadly independent from one another. People who tend to do well on one type of test tend to do well in them all. That's called "general intelligence" and it has way more tangible evidence to support it than the theory of multiple intelligences. (quick note that the book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences by Gardner has nothing to do with my own mindframing method for mindful productivity)

4. IQ tests just tell you how good you are at doing IQ tests. This was one of the most surprising ones for me, because I did believe in this neuromyth before writing this article. And it's actually a lecture at King's College debunking this myth that prompted me to write this article. According to my lecturer (the amazing Dr Stuart Ritchie), while IQ tests are certainly flawed in all sorts of ways, they are some of the most reliable and predictive tests that exist in the whole of psychological science. A study with almost a million men who did an IQ test as part of their military service in Sweden showed that the higher the IQ, the longer they lived. I will write a whole article about this, but many studies have shown that IQ tests do predict mortality, as well as educational attainment, work success, physical and mental health, and many other things. The myth that IQ tests only tell you how good you are at IQ tests has been pretty much debunked.

5. People have different learning styles. I already mentioned this neuromyth in my article about learning how to learn. But it's worth mentioning again because it's also a pretty popular neuromyth. The learning style theory states that people differ in the way they learn, which is due to some innate property of their brains and that teaching should be customised to their particular learning style. According to that theory, some people have more of a visual learning style, others an auditory learning style, etc. It sounds elegant, but it's completely wrong. Research shows that changing the teaching method has no impact on students success based on their preferred learning style. In short, we do have a preferred learning style-one that feels more comfortable-but using another one has no impact on our performance. We don't have different learning styles, we just have different learning preferences.

There are many, many other neuromyths-and I may write a follow-up article. But what's crazy is that it's not only the general public that believes them.

The table above was adapted from a scientific paper about neuromyths. The first column lists common neuromyths. The researchers then asked people to state whether these were true or false. People were put into three groups: the general public, educators (such as teachers), and people with high neuroscience exposure-think scientists and doctors. You can see the percentage of them for each group that believed these neuromyths to be true. For example, 59% of the general public, 55% of educators, and 43% of individuals with high neuroscience exposure believe in The Mozart Effect, a theory which suggests that listening to classical music can boost our intelligence. Which is false.

Even more depressingly, 14% of people with high neuroscience exposure believe that we only use 10% of our brain. Overall, the research found that on average 46% of the most educated people when it comes to the brain believed in these neuromyths.

The worst thing? Research shows that more education may not be able to fix this. Taking an educational psychology course does improve general knowledge of neuroscience but does not reduce belief in neuromyths. Neuromyths really do seem to be sticky. They feed into our desire to believe that everyone can be good at something, that we have untapped potential, that we are unique.

While it has been shown that it's incredibly hard to change people's mind when it comes to neuromyths, I hope this article will be a small contribution that may educate individuals who are willing to abandon some strongly-held beliefs about the way their brain works.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Neuromyths: debunking the misconceptions about our brains

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Fake news has become a hot topic. But the deliberate disinformation of the general public via traditional outlets or social media goes beyond the news: there is also an alarming rise in "fake science." The brain and the mind feel extremely familiar. We do spend lots of our time inside our heads.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scopri gli 8 punti fondamentali per una concezione antropocentrica dell’intelligenza artificiale

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
L’indicatore ESCS per una valutazione più equa - INVALSIopen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
L’indicatore ESCS definisce lo status sociale, economico e culturale delle famiglie degli studenti che partecipano alle Prove INVALSI e ad altre ricerche.

# data[].attributes.headline
A proposito di app per... promuovere lo sviluppo delle funzioni esecutiveSabrina PanesiIstituto Tecnologie Didattiche –Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

# data[].attributes.subject
A proposito di app per... promuovere lo sviluppo delle funzioni esecutiveSabrina PanesiIstituto Tecnologie Didattiche –Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche

# data[].attributes.body
https://medium.com/@ashishaa/the-shortening-human-attention-span-c7eb80cb6839

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A recent interview with British neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, the author of the 2018 book Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, begins with a caveat.

"I think it's important to know before we start that up until 20 years ago we really didn't know that the brain changes at all after childhood," she confides. "That's what I was taught during my undergraduate degree. We now know that's completely untrue."

In matters of settled opinion, science has often found itself in the role of provocateur, even saboteur-prodding at conventional wisdoms until they yield unexpected truths, and sometimes toppling them entirely. The mysteries of celestial bodies, heredity, and mental illness have all undergone dramatic rethinking.

So it shouldn't be entirely surprising that new technologies that allow us to peer into the brain as it processes information are driving a revolution in our understanding of human cognition. Images from fMRI machines, for example, reveal that the brain is less like a collection of discrete, specialized modules-one for speech and one for vision, the old model-and more like an integrated network of functions that support each other. Those same images show that cerebral networks undergo dramatic, global maturation well into our 20s.

The findings have cast doubt on many theories about adolescence. For too long, assertions about teenagers-from their purported irrationality to their apparent sense of invulnerability-have circulated widely and uncritically. The new research suggests that we have plenty of rethinking to do.

Of Mice and Minors

Adolescent rodents and adolescent humans are susceptible to peer pressure-and members of both species take risks at much higher rates when in the presence of companions their own age.

In a study conducted in 2005, neuroscientist Laurence Steinberg asked teenagers and adults to play a virtual driving game that tested their willingness to take risks as traffic lights turned from green to yellow to red. Participants were penalized when accidents occurred. Adolescents responded to the risks as well as adults did and performed about equally when playing alone. But in the presence of peers, risk-taking surged among the teenagers and young adults-risky driving increased threefold for 13- to 16-year-olds, and the number of crashes spiked-while remaining flat among adults.
Illustration by Leigh Wells
A study involving mice and alcohol consumption reached a similar conclusion. That 2014 experiment exposed rodents of different ages to the equivalent of an open bar: They could drink alcohol at their leisure. The adolescent mice-those at the tender age of 4 to 5 weeks-drank about as often as adult mice when by themselves. But in the presence of other juveniles, they settled in for a bender, drinking 25 percent more of the time. There was no change in the drinking of adult mice.

These results aren't just laboratory tricks. Using real crash data from 2007-10, a study published in 2012 found that the risk of death for teenagers driving alone increased by 44 percent per mile when traveling with one peer, and quadrupled with three peers in the car. By contrast, Blakemore writes, traveling companions are actually a "protective factor" for adults over 26, "who are less likely to crash if they have a passenger than if they're alone."

In a few recent experiments, peer pressure emerges as a measurable biological phenomenon, crossing over into the perceptible world like the first earthquake waves etched onto a seismograph. A 2013 study found that when human subjects were told that a peer was watching them, skin conductance readings-a measure of the electricity triggered by stress and arousal-were consistently higher in adolescents than in either adults or children. Brain scans administered at the same time revealed telltale flares of greater activity in key regions of the teenage brain linked to self-awareness and the ability to understand others.

It's never been a question of feeling invincible. For teenagers, there's just something about the presence of peers that is transfiguring-they understand the risks, and take them anyway.

A Telling Mismatch

A likely culprit in adolescent risk-taking is a brain network that stretches back deep into evolutionary history-the limbic system, the seat of primal instincts like fear, lust, hunger, and pleasure. "These are regions in the deep center of the brain," explained Blakemore. "They are much older, and we share these systems with a lot of other animals."

In 2014, Blakemore and two colleagues gathered brain images of 33 people and plotted the growth rates of individual limbic systems over time. They also looked at another critical brain region: the prefrontal cortex.
Illustration by Leigh Wells
The charts that resulted (above) show that limbic structures like the nucleus accumbens changed only modestly during adolescence while the prefrontal cortex experienced a dramatic shift in volume, shrinking and reorganizing as it pruned away unused synaptic connections. The upshot? The brain scans seem to indicate that the limbic system-the brain's reward system-is mature and firing on all cylinders in teenagers, while the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for things like self-control, planning, and self-awareness, is still busy developing.

"One major theory of adolescent development is that there is a mismatch between these two systems," Blakemore elaborated. "The limbic system, which gives you the rewarding feeling of taking risks, is structurally more developed before the prefrontal cortex, which stops you from taking risks."

If that seems too neat to you, Blakemore agrees. "I wouldn't discount social factors like changing schools," she cautions, or "overlook individual differences in teenagers."

Still, there's plenty of evidence that the limbic system is hyperactive during adolescence. It's not youthful irrationality or a flair for the dramatic at work; teenagers actually experience things like music, drugs, and the thrill of speed more powerfully than adults do. In his 2014 book Age of Opportunity: Lessons From the New Science of Adolescence, Steinberg draws a straight line to peer influence as well, noting that teenage peers "light up the same reward centers that are aroused by drugs, sex, food, and money."

All Natural Plastic

It's not all gloom and doom. The teenage years are "the last, great neuroplastic era in our lifetimes," according to Steinberg, referring to the brain's continued capacity for intellectual and emotional growth. The same emerging circuitry that makes teenagers vulnerable to risky behavior and mood swings also confers significant advantage on adolescent learners.
Illustration by Leigh Wells
At the deep neural level, new information is written into the gray matter of the brain itself-expressed in structural changes to synapses, which, through repeated exposure, form increasingly durable webs of memory. A study conducted in 2002 provides a fascinating window into the brain at the very moment of learning. The chart above shows the electrical response in both adolescent and adult mice to a novel piece of information, represented by the red arrow. Like a bell struck more sharply, the brain of the adolescent mouse produces a more dramatic reply-and then sustains it for longer.

That's good news-and a clear signal that the teenage brain is by nature more receptive to learning, says Frances Jensen in her 2015 book The Teenage Brain. Adolescent animals simply "show faster learning curves than adults," and we retain the capacity to improve even fundamental attributes like our IQ well into our teenage years.

Reaching Teenagers in Class

Take the direct approach: Talking to teenagers frankly about their brain development can provide useful context for their emotional worlds, and reset their expectations about their potential for continued intellectual growth. "We know that people like biological explanations. It's true in neurological stroke patients-showing that the brain is plastic and can change and rehabilitate is really useful," Blakemore said.

Explaining the role of the limbic system, the influence of peers, and the malleability of the teenage brain establishes a basis for students to better understand themselves and exert control over their emotional and academic lives. Blakemore insists there's also a simple question of respect at stake: "They have a right to know," she says emphatically. "It's happening in their brains."

Make good use of peer pressure: Peer pressure and social influence can be used for good, too. Smoking research shows, for example, that teens ignore warnings about the long-term health consequences of cigarettes, but respond to the social effects. It's more convincing to remind teens that cigarettes "give you bad breath, or put younger children in danger," said Blakemore. Teens "also respond to the idea that this is an adult industry that is exploiting them to make money. That has been shown to help for smoking and also for healthy eating."

Schools are aware of many of these social dynamics, and have used teen leaders, social influencers, and appeals to fairness and justice to change behaviors around vaping, bullying, and academic cheating.

Teach self-regulation: It's not too late. The prefrontal cortex, which governs executive functions, is still developing and remains highly responsive to the environment and to training during adolescence. It stands to reason that explicitly teaching self-regulation, long-term planning, and empathy might have particular benefits for teenagers.

According to Steinberg, efforts to improve the self-regulation of teenagers "are far more likely to be effective in reducing risky behavior than are those that are limited to providing them with information about risky activities." And social and emotional learning programs that show adolescents "how to regulate their emotions, manage stress, and consider other people's feelings" can have positive effects on executive functions more generally, improving focus and self-discipline, and setting teenagers up for academic and professional success well beyond high school.

The author of this article is the chief content officer at Edutopia. You can follow him on Twitter @smerrill777.

The charts in this story were drawn by illustrator Leigh Wells, and adapted from studies by 1) Margo Gardner and Laurence Steinberg, 2005; 2) K.L. Mills, A.L. Goddings, L.S. Clasen, J.N. Giedd, and S.J. Blakemore, 2014; and 3) N.L. Schramm, R.E. Egli, and D.G. Winder, 2002, via Synapse magazine, courtesy of Wiley-Liss, Inc.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Decoding the Teenage Brain (in 3 Charts)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A recent interview with British neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, the author of the 2018 book Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain, begins with a caveat. "I think it's important to know before we start that up until 20 years ago we really didn't know that the brain changes at all after childhood," she confides.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Executive functions (EFs) make possible mentally playing with ideas; taking the time to think before acting; meeting novel, unanticipated challenges; resisting temptations; and staying focused. Core EFs are inhibition [response inhibition (self-control—resisting temptations and resisting acting impu…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Executive functions (EFs) make possible mentally playing with ideas; taking the time to think before acting; meeting novel, unanticipated challenges; resisting temptations; and staying focused. Core EFs are inhibition [response inhibition (self-control—resisting temptations and resisting acting impu…

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow. A word of caution here. Student engagement is a very personal, internal thing. It starts with the student. You cannot force your students to be engaged in their learning. They have to own it. In other words, the highest place of student engagement isn't really engagement. It's empowerment.

But you are the architect that can build the systems that make flow a reality in your classroom. If you're interested in this, check out the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

It was the first game of the 1992 NBA Championship series. The Trail Blazers were pulling ahead of the Bulls when Phil Jackson called a timeout. Michael Jordan emerged from the timeout with a sense of intense concentration. In the next eighteen minutes, Jordan sunk six three-pointers. At one point, he looked to the sidelines and shrugged his shoulders, seemingly shocked by his own performance. He later described this experience as being "in the zone."

Players in every sport describe a similar experience of being "in the zone," where they tune out the crowd and the noise and the distractions and play at their top performance. But this sense of "being in the zone" isn't limited to sports. Artists, authors, musicians, and engineers all experience this experience this same phenomenon. It's a strange paradox where time seems to stand still and yet it seems over in an instant. It feels effortless even though it's an extreme challenge. There's a sense of relaxation but it's also intense. You seem more present than ever but you can lose your sense of self.

Chances are you've seen this in the classroom. A student suddenly gets "in the zone" in the midst of a project. Time seems to simultaneously slow down and yet speed up all at once. There's a sense of challenge and urgency but also a sense of relaxation. You can feel it intuitively. Student engagement has hit a new level.

There's a term for this. It's called being in a state of flow.

Unfortunately, I notice this happening more often outside of the classroom rather than in it. Kids often hit a state of flow on the basketball court or in theater or at a skate park. But if we want students to be fully empowered to own the creative process, we need to understand what it means for students to reach a state of flow in their creative work.
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Although the idea of flow has existed for thousands of years, Flow Theory began in the 1970's and 80's when Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi became fascinated by artists who were so lost in their creative work that they would lose track of time and even ignore food, water, and sleep.

Through his research, he noticed a similar experience with scientists, athletes, and authors. It was a state of hyper-focus and complete engagement that he described as "optimal experience."

Csikszentmihalyi, puts it this way in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

"The flow experience is when a person is completely involved in what he or she is doing, when the concentration is very high, when the person knows moment by moment what the next steps should be, like if you are playing tennis, you know where you want the ball to go, if you are playing a musical instrument you know what notes you want to play, every millisecond, almost. And you get feedback to what you're doing. That is, if you're playing music, you can hear whether what you are trying to do is coming out right or in tennis you see where the ball goes and so on. So there's concentration, clear goals, feedback, there is the feeling that what you can do is more or less in balance with what needs to be done, that is, challenges and skills are pretty much in balance."

I realize this might seem "out there," but chances are you've seen in your classroom - even within a whole group. You're doing a maker project and suddenly, the whole class seems locked into the same task. You're doing silent reading and the twenty minutes become an hour and you lose track of time and space. Your students are working on Scratch, putting together the blocks of code, and it seems to be as close to 100% engagement as possible. In these moments it feels like magic.

Note that researchers do not have one single working model for flow theory. However, the following are five factors identified by Csikszentmihalyi and Nakumara as vital for achieving a state of flow.

#1: It needs to be a task that you find intrinsically rewarding.

You probably aren't going to hit a state of flow while mowing the yard or cleaning a toilet. Well, unless that's your jam. In which case, have at it. But if you're going to remain intensely focused on a task, you have to start with something that fits your passions, interests, talents, or desires. It can be solitary or in a group. It could be competitive or non-competitive. It could be athletic or artistic. But it has to start with an internal drive.

#2: You need clear goals and a sense of progress.

There's a sense of intentionality to flow experiences. You know what you are doing and where you are going. So, the task typically starts out with a real clear picture of what you plan to accomplish. As you move through the task, there is a sense of progression.

This is why a sense of agency is so important. You need to feel that you have a command over what you are doing. In the moment, it can feel effortless. However, it's often an exceptionally challenging situation. You're often doubtful of success ahead of time. But this uncertainty is part of what makes the challenge fun. Csikszentmihalyi makes a subtle distinction between choosing tasks where you have complete control versus tasks where you are forced to exercise control. He describes it this way, "what people enjoy is not the sense of being in control but of exercising control in difficult situations."

#3: The task needs clear and immediate feedback.

Flow theorists are quick to point out that the flow experience involves having a clear goal in one's mind and constant, immediate feedback. In other words, it should be easy to figure out what's working and what's failing.

Note that you don't have to stop what you are doing to receive feedback. Unlike a classroom, where feedback often disrupts the learning process (especially with tasks), the idea here is that the feedback is immediate and that you modify and adjust what you are doing based on this instant feedback. When you're "in the zone," you often don't seem aware of the feedback. You're not stopping to analyze it. Your success almost seems mysterious. Perhaps this is why Michael Jordan, in the midst of his epic NBA Championship game against Portland (where he kept hitting three-pointers) shrugged his shoulders in confusion.

#4: The challenge must match the perceived skills.

This requires a sense of personal control or agency over the task. In 1987, Massimini, Csíkszentmihályi and Carli published the following 8-channel model of flow in Finding Flow: The Psychology of Student Engagement in Everyday Life.

Note that if a task is too easy, you might experience apathy or boredom but if a task seems too hard, you'll be anxious.

#5: Flow requires intense focus on the present moment.

Often, in the state of flow, you experience hyper-focus. You seem intensely aware of what's around you. At the same time, you are capable of tuning things out entirely. At times, you don't even feel like you're concentrating at all. Things are just clicking and you hardly notice how intense your focus has become.

When someone is experiencing flow, they often have a sense of "losing themselves." As Csikszentmihalyi describes, "they often stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing." At the same time, these moments when you have "lost yourself" are the very moments where you feel most alive.

This sounds great but it can be challenging to reach a state of flow in a school system with bells, tight schedules, curriculum maps, and testing?

So, for the last few years, I've been reading up on the theory of flow and consciously trying to create an environment where this happens in my classroom (formerly as a middle school teacher and now as a professor). I wrote a book on this topic. But I'm still learning. I'm still trying to figure this out. There isn't an instruction manual for this. On some level, flow experiences will always be serendipitous. But we can create an environment where flow experiences are more common. So, here are some of the ideas. I also have a set of Flow-related resources in the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

#1: Provide the right scaffolding

One of the key ideas in flow theory is that the challenge has to match a student's perceived ability level. Too often, kids give up because what they are doing is way too difficult and there is a sense that they will never learn it. Other times, students are bored and the excessive scaffolding becomes a hurdle they have to climb over.

Here's where it can help to have students self-select the scaffolding. Instead of providing all the scaffolding for each student, you can provide tutorials, sentence stems, and graphic organizers that any student has access to. It might take some time and guidance for students to get used to it but eventually, they can own the intervention process and they learn to determine what they know, what they don't know, and where to find additional support.

#2: Tap into Intrinsic Motivation

It's not surprising that students hit a state of flow when they are out on the ball field or in a theater or while playing an instrument. Not only do they feel competent (because of the right amount of scaffolding) but they also love what they are doing. I can get lost in writing a novel or making a sketch video. I will never get lost in the moment of fixing a sprinkler system or trying to put together furniture from Ikea.

This can be a challenge in the classroom, where the system is designed around extrinsic motivation. Everything from the tight curriculum map to the PBIS system to the traditional grading system seem to push compliance. In fact, as Phillip Schlechty pointed out, often what looks like engagement is simply strategic compliance. Kids become adept at playing the game of school while they lose the drive to learn for the sake of learning.

However, we can use these limitations as creative constraint. Yes, we have a curriculum map, but what are the ways we can get students excited about learning the standards? I remember doing a motivation audit of my unit plans when I taught 8th-grade social studies. Suddenly a boring economics unit became a chance to do simulations and challenges. I remember doing History Mysteries that tapped into a sense of wonder and curiosity. Other times, it was about asking big questions and tapping into existential big ideas through Socratic Seminars. Often, it meant tapping into creativity, as students created podcasts, blog posts, and documentaries.

But it also meant little things, like infusing fun, goofiness, and humor into the curriculum. We had goofy rituals and inside jokes and all of this helped create a culture of intrinsic motivation.

This was a hard paradigm shift. It was the idea that I had to create the conditions where students would want to learn rather than have to learn. Often, this meant shifting toward student-centered projects. Which leads to the next big idea of student choice and agency.

#3: Embrace student choice and agency

When you reach a state of flow, you are not only intrinsically motivated, you also have a sense of control over what you are doing. This is why I love the idea of student-centered creative projects.

This might involve scrapping weekly tests and devoting that time to choice-centered Genius Hour projects, where they get to choose the topics. It might involve letting students chase their own questions with the inquiry-based Wonder Day or Wonder Week project. You could also allow students to own the creative process through a long-term design thinking project. Or, if you are short on time, they could do a maker challenge or engage in rapid prototyping.

Ultimately, we want to empower students to own their learning. So, it goes beyond simply providing choices and into a place where students can ask the questions, own the assessment process, and self-select the scaffolding. It can help to ask the question, "What am I doing for students that they could be doing for themselves?"

#4: Minimize distractions

I often hear people say that creative classroom are filled with "controlled chaos." There's probably an element of truth to this. When students are making things, they will be moving around and talking and it might even get loud. However, this can also be distracting. It's not a bad thing to reduce clutter or decrease noise and allow students to reach that state of hyper-focus.

It can also help to slow down. Here's where you provide longer learning opportunities with fewer interruptions. In my first few years of teaching, I thought student engagement required an action-packed classroom. I didn't realize that my frantic pace was actually getting in the way. Students never had the chance to focus in a leisurely, relaxed way. Since then, I've realized it's less about action and more about suspense. If there's a true challenge that feels meaningful to students, they are more likely to stay focused and get lost in what they are doing.

#5: Help Students with Metacognition

If you want students to determine goals and then monitor and adjust their approach, they need to engage in metacognition. Although there are many models for metacognition, most of them share some sort of variation on a cycle with the following components:

Assess the task

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses

Plan the approach

Apply strategies (and monitor progress)

Reflect on whether the approach is working - in order to adjust and assess again

As an educator, you can model metacognition by talking through the process of assessing the task and determining an approach. It can help to ask students to visualize what they will do in order to accomplish a task. This can be as complicated as a formal plan or as simple as a quick pair-share. You can also incorporate reflection into things like exit slips and self-reflection surveys. When working in collaborative groups, students can engage in metacognition through the project planning process.

But this requires a shift in how we think about assessment. It means students will need to engage in frequent peer feedback and self-assessment. It might also mean pulling students aside for quick one-on-one conferences.

Making It a Reality

There is no magic formula for reaching a state of flow. These flow experiences are rare in the classroom, partly because it requires total buy-in from students. We can't make students hit that state of hyperfocus or fall in love with the learning process. But we can create the conditions that make it possible for students to reach a state flow. And when they reach a place of creative flow, they are more likely to fall in love with the creative process and continue with that maker mindset even when they leave your classroom.

You are the architect. You can design the structures that take student engagement to the next level, where they aren't simply engaged in the task but truly empowered to own their learning.

If you are passionate about seeing students develop a creative mindset and you love those moments where they reach a state of flow, would you share your story in the comment section below? Would you also share any questions, tips, and ideas for anyone else?

You can also sign up below and get the Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox, with free resources you can use to help your students reach optimal engagement. Also, I wrote a book on this topic if you're interested.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Five Ways to Boost Student Engagement with Flow Theory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow. A word of caution here. Student engagement is a very personal, internal thing. It starts with the student. You cannot force your students to be engaged in their learning. They have to own it. In other words, the highest place of student engagement isn't really engagement. It's empowerment.

But you are the architect that can build the systems that make flow a reality in your classroom. If you're interested in this, check out the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

It was the first game of the 1992 NBA Championship series. The Trail Blazers were pulling ahead of the Bulls when Phil Jackson called a timeout. Michael Jordan emerged from the timeout with a sense of intense concentration. In the next eighteen minutes, Jordan sunk six three-pointers. At one point, he looked to the sidelines and shrugged his shoulders, seemingly shocked by his own performance. He later described this experience as being "in the zone."

Players in every sport describe a similar experience of being "in the zone," where they tune out the crowd and the noise and the distractions and play at their top performance. But this sense of "being in the zone" isn't limited to sports. Artists, authors, musicians, and engineers all experience this experience this same phenomenon. It's a strange paradox where time seems to stand still and yet it seems over in an instant. It feels effortless even though it's an extreme challenge. There's a sense of relaxation but it's also intense. You seem more present than ever but you can lose your sense of self.

Chances are you've seen this in the classroom. A student suddenly gets "in the zone" in the midst of a project. Time seems to simultaneously slow down and yet speed up all at once. There's a sense of challenge and urgency but also a sense of relaxation. You can feel it intuitively. Student engagement has hit a new level.

There's a term for this. It's called being in a state of flow.

Unfortunately, I notice this happening more often outside of the classroom rather than in it. Kids often hit a state of flow on the basketball court or in theater or at a skate park. But if we want students to be fully empowered to own the creative process, we need to understand what it means for students to reach a state of flow in their creative work.
Subscribe to YouTube Channel
Although the idea of flow has existed for thousands of years, Flow Theory began in the 1970's and 80's when Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi became fascinated by artists who were so lost in their creative work that they would lose track of time and even ignore food, water, and sleep.

Through his research, he noticed a similar experience with scientists, athletes, and authors. It was a state of hyper-focus and complete engagement that he described as "optimal experience."

Csikszentmihalyi, puts it this way in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

"The flow experience is when a person is completely involved in what he or she is doing, when the concentration is very high, when the person knows moment by moment what the next steps should be, like if you are playing tennis, you know where you want the ball to go, if you are playing a musical instrument you know what notes you want to play, every millisecond, almost. And you get feedback to what you're doing. That is, if you're playing music, you can hear whether what you are trying to do is coming out right or in tennis you see where the ball goes and so on. So there's concentration, clear goals, feedback, there is the feeling that what you can do is more or less in balance with what needs to be done, that is, challenges and skills are pretty much in balance."

I realize this might seem "out there," but chances are you've seen in your classroom - even within a whole group. You're doing a maker project and suddenly, the whole class seems locked into the same task. You're doing silent reading and the twenty minutes become an hour and you lose track of time and space. Your students are working on Scratch, putting together the blocks of code, and it seems to be as close to 100% engagement as possible. In these moments it feels like magic.

Note that researchers do not have one single working model for flow theory. However, the following are five factors identified by Csikszentmihalyi and Nakumara as vital for achieving a state of flow.

#1: It needs to be a task that you find intrinsically rewarding.

You probably aren't going to hit a state of flow while mowing the yard or cleaning a toilet. Well, unless that's your jam. In which case, have at it. But if you're going to remain intensely focused on a task, you have to start with something that fits your passions, interests, talents, or desires. It can be solitary or in a group. It could be competitive or non-competitive. It could be athletic or artistic. But it has to start with an internal drive.

#2: You need clear goals and a sense of progress.

There's a sense of intentionality to flow experiences. You know what you are doing and where you are going. So, the task typically starts out with a real clear picture of what you plan to accomplish. As you move through the task, there is a sense of progression.

This is why a sense of agency is so important. You need to feel that you have a command over what you are doing. In the moment, it can feel effortless. However, it's often an exceptionally challenging situation. You're often doubtful of success ahead of time. But this uncertainty is part of what makes the challenge fun. Csikszentmihalyi makes a subtle distinction between choosing tasks where you have complete control versus tasks where you are forced to exercise control. He describes it this way, "what people enjoy is not the sense of being in control but of exercising control in difficult situations."

#3: The task needs clear and immediate feedback.

Flow theorists are quick to point out that the flow experience involves having a clear goal in one's mind and constant, immediate feedback. In other words, it should be easy to figure out what's working and what's failing.

Note that you don't have to stop what you are doing to receive feedback. Unlike a classroom, where feedback often disrupts the learning process (especially with tasks), the idea here is that the feedback is immediate and that you modify and adjust what you are doing based on this instant feedback. When you're "in the zone," you often don't seem aware of the feedback. You're not stopping to analyze it. Your success almost seems mysterious. Perhaps this is why Michael Jordan, in the midst of his epic NBA Championship game against Portland (where he kept hitting three-pointers) shrugged his shoulders in confusion.

#4: The challenge must match the perceived skills.

This requires a sense of personal control or agency over the task. In 1987, Massimini, Csíkszentmihályi and Carli published the following 8-channel model of flow in Finding Flow: The Psychology of Student Engagement in Everyday Life.

Note that if a task is too easy, you might experience apathy or boredom but if a task seems too hard, you'll be anxious.

#5: Flow requires intense focus on the present moment.

Often, in the state of flow, you experience hyper-focus. You seem intensely aware of what's around you. At the same time, you are capable of tuning things out entirely. At times, you don't even feel like you're concentrating at all. Things are just clicking and you hardly notice how intense your focus has become.

When someone is experiencing flow, they often have a sense of "losing themselves." As Csikszentmihalyi describes, "they often stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing." At the same time, these moments when you have "lost yourself" are the very moments where you feel most alive.

This sounds great but it can be challenging to reach a state of flow in a school system with bells, tight schedules, curriculum maps, and testing?

So, for the last few years, I've been reading up on the theory of flow and consciously trying to create an environment where this happens in my classroom (formerly as a middle school teacher and now as a professor). I wrote a book on this topic. But I'm still learning. I'm still trying to figure this out. There isn't an instruction manual for this. On some level, flow experiences will always be serendipitous. But we can create an environment where flow experiences are more common. So, here are some of the ideas. I also have a set of Flow-related resources in the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

#1: Provide the right scaffolding

One of the key ideas in flow theory is that the challenge has to match a student's perceived ability level. Too often, kids give up because what they are doing is way too difficult and there is a sense that they will never learn it. Other times, students are bored and the excessive scaffolding becomes a hurdle they have to climb over.

Here's where it can help to have students self-select the scaffolding. Instead of providing all the scaffolding for each student, you can provide tutorials, sentence stems, and graphic organizers that any student has access to. It might take some time and guidance for students to get used to it but eventually, they can own the intervention process and they learn to determine what they know, what they don't know, and where to find additional support.

#2: Tap into Intrinsic Motivation

It's not surprising that students hit a state of flow when they are out on the ball field or in a theater or while playing an instrument. Not only do they feel competent (because of the right amount of scaffolding) but they also love what they are doing. I can get lost in writing a novel or making a sketch video. I will never get lost in the moment of fixing a sprinkler system or trying to put together furniture from Ikea.

This can be a challenge in the classroom, where the system is designed around extrinsic motivation. Everything from the tight curriculum map to the PBIS system to the traditional grading system seem to push compliance. In fact, as Phillip Schlechty pointed out, often what looks like engagement is simply strategic compliance. Kids become adept at playing the game of school while they lose the drive to learn for the sake of learning.

However, we can use these limitations as creative constraint. Yes, we have a curriculum map, but what are the ways we can get students excited about learning the standards? I remember doing a motivation audit of my unit plans when I taught 8th-grade social studies. Suddenly a boring economics unit became a chance to do simulations and challenges. I remember doing History Mysteries that tapped into a sense of wonder and curiosity. Other times, it was about asking big questions and tapping into existential big ideas through Socratic Seminars. Often, it meant tapping into creativity, as students created podcasts, blog posts, and documentaries.

But it also meant little things, like infusing fun, goofiness, and humor into the curriculum. We had goofy rituals and inside jokes and all of this helped create a culture of intrinsic motivation.

This was a hard paradigm shift. It was the idea that I had to create the conditions where students would want to learn rather than have to learn. Often, this meant shifting toward student-centered projects. Which leads to the next big idea of student choice and agency.

#3: Embrace student choice and agency

When you reach a state of flow, you are not only intrinsically motivated, you also have a sense of control over what you are doing. This is why I love the idea of student-centered creative projects.

This might involve scrapping weekly tests and devoting that time to choice-centered Genius Hour projects, where they get to choose the topics. It might involve letting students chase their own questions with the inquiry-based Wonder Day or Wonder Week project. You could also allow students to own the creative process through a long-term design thinking project. Or, if you are short on time, they could do a maker challenge or engage in rapid prototyping.

Ultimately, we want to empower students to own their learning. So, it goes beyond simply providing choices and into a place where students can ask the questions, own the assessment process, and self-select the scaffolding. It can help to ask the question, "What am I doing for students that they could be doing for themselves?"

#4: Minimize distractions

I often hear people say that creative classroom are filled with "controlled chaos." There's probably an element of truth to this. When students are making things, they will be moving around and talking and it might even get loud. However, this can also be distracting. It's not a bad thing to reduce clutter or decrease noise and allow students to reach that state of hyper-focus.

It can also help to slow down. Here's where you provide longer learning opportunities with fewer interruptions. In my first few years of teaching, I thought student engagement required an action-packed classroom. I didn't realize that my frantic pace was actually getting in the way. Students never had the chance to focus in a leisurely, relaxed way. Since then, I've realized it's less about action and more about suspense. If there's a true challenge that feels meaningful to students, they are more likely to stay focused and get lost in what they are doing.

#5: Help Students with Metacognition

If you want students to determine goals and then monitor and adjust their approach, they need to engage in metacognition. Although there are many models for metacognition, most of them share some sort of variation on a cycle with the following components:

Assess the task

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses

Plan the approach

Apply strategies (and monitor progress)

Reflect on whether the approach is working - in order to adjust and assess again

As an educator, you can model metacognition by talking through the process of assessing the task and determining an approach. It can help to ask students to visualize what they will do in order to accomplish a task. This can be as complicated as a formal plan or as simple as a quick pair-share. You can also incorporate reflection into things like exit slips and self-reflection surveys. When working in collaborative groups, students can engage in metacognition through the project planning process.

But this requires a shift in how we think about assessment. It means students will need to engage in frequent peer feedback and self-assessment. It might also mean pulling students aside for quick one-on-one conferences.

Making It a Reality

There is no magic formula for reaching a state of flow. These flow experiences are rare in the classroom, partly because it requires total buy-in from students. We can't make students hit that state of hyperfocus or fall in love with the learning process. But we can create the conditions that make it possible for students to reach a state flow. And when they reach a place of creative flow, they are more likely to fall in love with the creative process and continue with that maker mindset even when they leave your classroom.

You are the architect. You can design the structures that take student engagement to the next level, where they aren't simply engaged in the task but truly empowered to own their learning.

If you are passionate about seeing students develop a creative mindset and you love those moments where they reach a state of flow, would you share your story in the comment section below? Would you also share any questions, tips, and ideas for anyone else?

You can also sign up below and get the Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox, with free resources you can use to help your students reach optimal engagement. Also, I wrote a book on this topic if you're interested.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Five Ways to Boost Student Engagement with Flow Theory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow.

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If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow. A word of caution here. Student engagement is a very personal, internal thing. It starts with the student. You cannot force your students to be engaged in their learning. They have to own it. In other words, the highest place of student engagement isn't really engagement. It's empowerment.

But you are the architect that can build the systems that make flow a reality in your classroom. If you're interested in this, check out the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

It was the first game of the 1992 NBA Championship series. The Trail Blazers were pulling ahead of the Bulls when Phil Jackson called a timeout. Michael Jordan emerged from the timeout with a sense of intense concentration. In the next eighteen minutes, Jordan sunk six three-pointers. At one point, he looked to the sidelines and shrugged his shoulders, seemingly shocked by his own performance. He later described this experience as being "in the zone."

Players in every sport describe a similar experience of being "in the zone," where they tune out the crowd and the noise and the distractions and play at their top performance. But this sense of "being in the zone" isn't limited to sports. Artists, authors, musicians, and engineers all experience this experience this same phenomenon. It's a strange paradox where time seems to stand still and yet it seems over in an instant. It feels effortless even though it's an extreme challenge. There's a sense of relaxation but it's also intense. You seem more present than ever but you can lose your sense of self.

Chances are you've seen this in the classroom. A student suddenly gets "in the zone" in the midst of a project. Time seems to simultaneously slow down and yet speed up all at once. There's a sense of challenge and urgency but also a sense of relaxation. You can feel it intuitively. Student engagement has hit a new level.

There's a term for this. It's called being in a state of flow.

Unfortunately, I notice this happening more often outside of the classroom rather than in it. Kids often hit a state of flow on the basketball court or in theater or at a skate park. But if we want students to be fully empowered to own the creative process, we need to understand what it means for students to reach a state of flow in their creative work.
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Although the idea of flow has existed for thousands of years, Flow Theory began in the 1970's and 80's when Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi became fascinated by artists who were so lost in their creative work that they would lose track of time and even ignore food, water, and sleep.

Through his research, he noticed a similar experience with scientists, athletes, and authors. It was a state of hyper-focus and complete engagement that he described as "optimal experience."

Csikszentmihalyi, puts it this way in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

"The flow experience is when a person is completely involved in what he or she is doing, when the concentration is very high, when the person knows moment by moment what the next steps should be, like if you are playing tennis, you know where you want the ball to go, if you are playing a musical instrument you know what notes you want to play, every millisecond, almost. And you get feedback to what you're doing. That is, if you're playing music, you can hear whether what you are trying to do is coming out right or in tennis you see where the ball goes and so on. So there's concentration, clear goals, feedback, there is the feeling that what you can do is more or less in balance with what needs to be done, that is, challenges and skills are pretty much in balance."

I realize this might seem "out there," but chances are you've seen in your classroom - even within a whole group. You're doing a maker project and suddenly, the whole class seems locked into the same task. You're doing silent reading and the twenty minutes become an hour and you lose track of time and space. Your students are working on Scratch, putting together the blocks of code, and it seems to be as close to 100% engagement as possible. In these moments it feels like magic.

Note that researchers do not have one single working model for flow theory. However, the following are five factors identified by Csikszentmihalyi and Nakumara as vital for achieving a state of flow.

#1: It needs to be a task that you find intrinsically rewarding.

You probably aren't going to hit a state of flow while mowing the yard or cleaning a toilet. Well, unless that's your jam. In which case, have at it. But if you're going to remain intensely focused on a task, you have to start with something that fits your passions, interests, talents, or desires. It can be solitary or in a group. It could be competitive or non-competitive. It could be athletic or artistic. But it has to start with an internal drive.

#2: You need clear goals and a sense of progress.

There's a sense of intentionality to flow experiences. You know what you are doing and where you are going. So, the task typically starts out with a real clear picture of what you plan to accomplish. As you move through the task, there is a sense of progression.

This is why a sense of agency is so important. You need to feel that you have a command over what you are doing. In the moment, it can feel effortless. However, it's often an exceptionally challenging situation. You're often doubtful of success ahead of time. But this uncertainty is part of what makes the challenge fun. Csikszentmihalyi makes a subtle distinction between choosing tasks where you have complete control versus tasks where you are forced to exercise control. He describes it this way, "what people enjoy is not the sense of being in control but of exercising control in difficult situations."

#3: The task needs clear and immediate feedback.

Flow theorists are quick to point out that the flow experience involves having a clear goal in one's mind and constant, immediate feedback. In other words, it should be easy to figure out what's working and what's failing.

Note that you don't have to stop what you are doing to receive feedback. Unlike a classroom, where feedback often disrupts the learning process (especially with tasks), the idea here is that the feedback is immediate and that you modify and adjust what you are doing based on this instant feedback. When you're "in the zone," you often don't seem aware of the feedback. You're not stopping to analyze it. Your success almost seems mysterious. Perhaps this is why Michael Jordan, in the midst of his epic NBA Championship game against Portland (where he kept hitting three-pointers) shrugged his shoulders in confusion.

#4: The challenge must match the perceived skills.

This requires a sense of personal control or agency over the task. In 1987, Massimini, Csíkszentmihályi and Carli published the following 8-channel model of flow in Finding Flow: The Psychology of Student Engagement in Everyday Life.

Note that if a task is too easy, you might experience apathy or boredom but if a task seems too hard, you'll be anxious.

#5: Flow requires intense focus on the present moment.

Often, in the state of flow, you experience hyper-focus. You seem intensely aware of what's around you. At the same time, you are capable of tuning things out entirely. At times, you don't even feel like you're concentrating at all. Things are just clicking and you hardly notice how intense your focus has become.

When someone is experiencing flow, they often have a sense of "losing themselves." As Csikszentmihalyi describes, "they often stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing." At the same time, these moments when you have "lost yourself" are the very moments where you feel most alive.

This sounds great but it can be challenging to reach a state of flow in a school system with bells, tight schedules, curriculum maps, and testing?

So, for the last few years, I've been reading up on the theory of flow and consciously trying to create an environment where this happens in my classroom (formerly as a middle school teacher and now as a professor). I wrote a book on this topic. But I'm still learning. I'm still trying to figure this out. There isn't an instruction manual for this. On some level, flow experiences will always be serendipitous. But we can create an environment where flow experiences are more common. So, here are some of the ideas. I also have a set of Flow-related resources in the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

#1: Provide the right scaffolding

One of the key ideas in flow theory is that the challenge has to match a student's perceived ability level. Too often, kids give up because what they are doing is way too difficult and there is a sense that they will never learn it. Other times, students are bored and the excessive scaffolding becomes a hurdle they have to climb over.

Here's where it can help to have students self-select the scaffolding. Instead of providing all the scaffolding for each student, you can provide tutorials, sentence stems, and graphic organizers that any student has access to. It might take some time and guidance for students to get used to it but eventually, they can own the intervention process and they learn to determine what they know, what they don't know, and where to find additional support.

#2: Tap into Intrinsic Motivation

It's not surprising that students hit a state of flow when they are out on the ball field or in a theater or while playing an instrument. Not only do they feel competent (because of the right amount of scaffolding) but they also love what they are doing. I can get lost in writing a novel or making a sketch video. I will never get lost in the moment of fixing a sprinkler system or trying to put together furniture from Ikea.

This can be a challenge in the classroom, where the system is designed around extrinsic motivation. Everything from the tight curriculum map to the PBIS system to the traditional grading system seem to push compliance. In fact, as Phillip Schlechty pointed out, often what looks like engagement is simply strategic compliance. Kids become adept at playing the game of school while they lose the drive to learn for the sake of learning.

However, we can use these limitations as creative constraint. Yes, we have a curriculum map, but what are the ways we can get students excited about learning the standards? I remember doing a motivation audit of my unit plans when I taught 8th-grade social studies. Suddenly a boring economics unit became a chance to do simulations and challenges. I remember doing History Mysteries that tapped into a sense of wonder and curiosity. Other times, it was about asking big questions and tapping into existential big ideas through Socratic Seminars. Often, it meant tapping into creativity, as students created podcasts, blog posts, and documentaries.

But it also meant little things, like infusing fun, goofiness, and humor into the curriculum. We had goofy rituals and inside jokes and all of this helped create a culture of intrinsic motivation.

This was a hard paradigm shift. It was the idea that I had to create the conditions where students would want to learn rather than have to learn. Often, this meant shifting toward student-centered projects. Which leads to the next big idea of student choice and agency.

#3: Embrace student choice and agency

When you reach a state of flow, you are not only intrinsically motivated, you also have a sense of control over what you are doing. This is why I love the idea of student-centered creative projects.

This might involve scrapping weekly tests and devoting that time to choice-centered Genius Hour projects, where they get to choose the topics. It might involve letting students chase their own questions with the inquiry-based Wonder Day or Wonder Week project. You could also allow students to own the creative process through a long-term design thinking project. Or, if you are short on time, they could do a maker challenge or engage in rapid prototyping.

Ultimately, we want to empower students to own their learning. So, it goes beyond simply providing choices and into a place where students can ask the questions, own the assessment process, and self-select the scaffolding. It can help to ask the question, "What am I doing for students that they could be doing for themselves?"

#4: Minimize distractions

I often hear people say that creative classroom are filled with "controlled chaos." There's probably an element of truth to this. When students are making things, they will be moving around and talking and it might even get loud. However, this can also be distracting. It's not a bad thing to reduce clutter or decrease noise and allow students to reach that state of hyper-focus.

It can also help to slow down. Here's where you provide longer learning opportunities with fewer interruptions. In my first few years of teaching, I thought student engagement required an action-packed classroom. I didn't realize that my frantic pace was actually getting in the way. Students never had the chance to focus in a leisurely, relaxed way. Since then, I've realized it's less about action and more about suspense. If there's a true challenge that feels meaningful to students, they are more likely to stay focused and get lost in what they are doing.

#5: Help Students with Metacognition

If you want students to determine goals and then monitor and adjust their approach, they need to engage in metacognition. Although there are many models for metacognition, most of them share some sort of variation on a cycle with the following components:

Assess the task

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses

Plan the approach

Apply strategies (and monitor progress)

Reflect on whether the approach is working - in order to adjust and assess again

As an educator, you can model metacognition by talking through the process of assessing the task and determining an approach. It can help to ask students to visualize what they will do in order to accomplish a task. This can be as complicated as a formal plan or as simple as a quick pair-share. You can also incorporate reflection into things like exit slips and self-reflection surveys. When working in collaborative groups, students can engage in metacognition through the project planning process.

But this requires a shift in how we think about assessment. It means students will need to engage in frequent peer feedback and self-assessment. It might also mean pulling students aside for quick one-on-one conferences.

Making It a Reality

There is no magic formula for reaching a state of flow. These flow experiences are rare in the classroom, partly because it requires total buy-in from students. We can't make students hit that state of hyperfocus or fall in love with the learning process. But we can create the conditions that make it possible for students to reach a state flow. And when they reach a place of creative flow, they are more likely to fall in love with the creative process and continue with that maker mindset even when they leave your classroom.

You are the architect. You can design the structures that take student engagement to the next level, where they aren't simply engaged in the task but truly empowered to own their learning.

If you are passionate about seeing students develop a creative mindset and you love those moments where they reach a state of flow, would you share your story in the comment section below? Would you also share any questions, tips, and ideas for anyone else?

You can also sign up below and get the Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox, with free resources you can use to help your students reach optimal engagement. Also, I wrote a book on this topic if you're interested.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Five Ways to Boost Student Engagement with Flow Theory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow. A word of caution here. Student engagement is a very personal, internal thing. It starts with the student. You cannot force your students to be engaged in their learning. They have to own it. In other words, the highest place of student engagement isn't really engagement. It's empowerment.

But you are the architect that can build the systems that make flow a reality in your classroom. If you're interested in this, check out the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

It was the first game of the 1992 NBA Championship series. The Trail Blazers were pulling ahead of the Bulls when Phil Jackson called a timeout. Michael Jordan emerged from the timeout with a sense of intense concentration. In the next eighteen minutes, Jordan sunk six three-pointers. At one point, he looked to the sidelines and shrugged his shoulders, seemingly shocked by his own performance. He later described this experience as being "in the zone."

Players in every sport describe a similar experience of being "in the zone," where they tune out the crowd and the noise and the distractions and play at their top performance. But this sense of "being in the zone" isn't limited to sports. Artists, authors, musicians, and engineers all experience this experience this same phenomenon. It's a strange paradox where time seems to stand still and yet it seems over in an instant. It feels effortless even though it's an extreme challenge. There's a sense of relaxation but it's also intense. You seem more present than ever but you can lose your sense of self.

Chances are you've seen this in the classroom. A student suddenly gets "in the zone" in the midst of a project. Time seems to simultaneously slow down and yet speed up all at once. There's a sense of challenge and urgency but also a sense of relaxation. You can feel it intuitively. Student engagement has hit a new level.

There's a term for this. It's called being in a state of flow.

Unfortunately, I notice this happening more often outside of the classroom rather than in it. Kids often hit a state of flow on the basketball court or in theater or at a skate park. But if we want students to be fully empowered to own the creative process, we need to understand what it means for students to reach a state of flow in their creative work.
Subscribe to YouTube Channel
Although the idea of flow has existed for thousands of years, Flow Theory began in the 1970's and 80's when Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi became fascinated by artists who were so lost in their creative work that they would lose track of time and even ignore food, water, and sleep.

Through his research, he noticed a similar experience with scientists, athletes, and authors. It was a state of hyper-focus and complete engagement that he described as "optimal experience."

Csikszentmihalyi, puts it this way in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

"The flow experience is when a person is completely involved in what he or she is doing, when the concentration is very high, when the person knows moment by moment what the next steps should be, like if you are playing tennis, you know where you want the ball to go, if you are playing a musical instrument you know what notes you want to play, every millisecond, almost. And you get feedback to what you're doing. That is, if you're playing music, you can hear whether what you are trying to do is coming out right or in tennis you see where the ball goes and so on. So there's concentration, clear goals, feedback, there is the feeling that what you can do is more or less in balance with what needs to be done, that is, challenges and skills are pretty much in balance."

I realize this might seem "out there," but chances are you've seen in your classroom - even within a whole group. You're doing a maker project and suddenly, the whole class seems locked into the same task. You're doing silent reading and the twenty minutes become an hour and you lose track of time and space. Your students are working on Scratch, putting together the blocks of code, and it seems to be as close to 100% engagement as possible. In these moments it feels like magic.

Note that researchers do not have one single working model for flow theory. However, the following are five factors identified by Csikszentmihalyi and Nakumara as vital for achieving a state of flow.

#1: It needs to be a task that you find intrinsically rewarding.

You probably aren't going to hit a state of flow while mowing the yard or cleaning a toilet. Well, unless that's your jam. In which case, have at it. But if you're going to remain intensely focused on a task, you have to start with something that fits your passions, interests, talents, or desires. It can be solitary or in a group. It could be competitive or non-competitive. It could be athletic or artistic. But it has to start with an internal drive.

#2: You need clear goals and a sense of progress.

There's a sense of intentionality to flow experiences. You know what you are doing and where you are going. So, the task typically starts out with a real clear picture of what you plan to accomplish. As you move through the task, there is a sense of progression.

This is why a sense of agency is so important. You need to feel that you have a command over what you are doing. In the moment, it can feel effortless. However, it's often an exceptionally challenging situation. You're often doubtful of success ahead of time. But this uncertainty is part of what makes the challenge fun. Csikszentmihalyi makes a subtle distinction between choosing tasks where you have complete control versus tasks where you are forced to exercise control. He describes it this way, "what people enjoy is not the sense of being in control but of exercising control in difficult situations."

#3: The task needs clear and immediate feedback.

Flow theorists are quick to point out that the flow experience involves having a clear goal in one's mind and constant, immediate feedback. In other words, it should be easy to figure out what's working and what's failing.

Note that you don't have to stop what you are doing to receive feedback. Unlike a classroom, where feedback often disrupts the learning process (especially with tasks), the idea here is that the feedback is immediate and that you modify and adjust what you are doing based on this instant feedback. When you're "in the zone," you often don't seem aware of the feedback. You're not stopping to analyze it. Your success almost seems mysterious. Perhaps this is why Michael Jordan, in the midst of his epic NBA Championship game against Portland (where he kept hitting three-pointers) shrugged his shoulders in confusion.

#4: The challenge must match the perceived skills.

This requires a sense of personal control or agency over the task. In 1987, Massimini, Csíkszentmihályi and Carli published the following 8-channel model of flow in Finding Flow: The Psychology of Student Engagement in Everyday Life.

Note that if a task is too easy, you might experience apathy or boredom but if a task seems too hard, you'll be anxious.

#5: Flow requires intense focus on the present moment.

Often, in the state of flow, you experience hyper-focus. You seem intensely aware of what's around you. At the same time, you are capable of tuning things out entirely. At times, you don't even feel like you're concentrating at all. Things are just clicking and you hardly notice how intense your focus has become.

When someone is experiencing flow, they often have a sense of "losing themselves." As Csikszentmihalyi describes, "they often stop being aware of themselves as separate from the actions they are performing." At the same time, these moments when you have "lost yourself" are the very moments where you feel most alive.

This sounds great but it can be challenging to reach a state of flow in a school system with bells, tight schedules, curriculum maps, and testing?

So, for the last few years, I've been reading up on the theory of flow and consciously trying to create an environment where this happens in my classroom (formerly as a middle school teacher and now as a professor). I wrote a book on this topic. But I'm still learning. I'm still trying to figure this out. There isn't an instruction manual for this. On some level, flow experiences will always be serendipitous. But we can create an environment where flow experiences are more common. So, here are some of the ideas. I also have a set of Flow-related resources in the free Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox at the bottom of this post.

#1: Provide the right scaffolding

One of the key ideas in flow theory is that the challenge has to match a student's perceived ability level. Too often, kids give up because what they are doing is way too difficult and there is a sense that they will never learn it. Other times, students are bored and the excessive scaffolding becomes a hurdle they have to climb over.

Here's where it can help to have students self-select the scaffolding. Instead of providing all the scaffolding for each student, you can provide tutorials, sentence stems, and graphic organizers that any student has access to. It might take some time and guidance for students to get used to it but eventually, they can own the intervention process and they learn to determine what they know, what they don't know, and where to find additional support.

#2: Tap into Intrinsic Motivation

It's not surprising that students hit a state of flow when they are out on the ball field or in a theater or while playing an instrument. Not only do they feel competent (because of the right amount of scaffolding) but they also love what they are doing. I can get lost in writing a novel or making a sketch video. I will never get lost in the moment of fixing a sprinkler system or trying to put together furniture from Ikea.

This can be a challenge in the classroom, where the system is designed around extrinsic motivation. Everything from the tight curriculum map to the PBIS system to the traditional grading system seem to push compliance. In fact, as Phillip Schlechty pointed out, often what looks like engagement is simply strategic compliance. Kids become adept at playing the game of school while they lose the drive to learn for the sake of learning.

However, we can use these limitations as creative constraint. Yes, we have a curriculum map, but what are the ways we can get students excited about learning the standards? I remember doing a motivation audit of my unit plans when I taught 8th-grade social studies. Suddenly a boring economics unit became a chance to do simulations and challenges. I remember doing History Mysteries that tapped into a sense of wonder and curiosity. Other times, it was about asking big questions and tapping into existential big ideas through Socratic Seminars. Often, it meant tapping into creativity, as students created podcasts, blog posts, and documentaries.

But it also meant little things, like infusing fun, goofiness, and humor into the curriculum. We had goofy rituals and inside jokes and all of this helped create a culture of intrinsic motivation.

This was a hard paradigm shift. It was the idea that I had to create the conditions where students would want to learn rather than have to learn. Often, this meant shifting toward student-centered projects. Which leads to the next big idea of student choice and agency.

#3: Embrace student choice and agency

When you reach a state of flow, you are not only intrinsically motivated, you also have a sense of control over what you are doing. This is why I love the idea of student-centered creative projects.

This might involve scrapping weekly tests and devoting that time to choice-centered Genius Hour projects, where they get to choose the topics. It might involve letting students chase their own questions with the inquiry-based Wonder Day or Wonder Week project. You could also allow students to own the creative process through a long-term design thinking project. Or, if you are short on time, they could do a maker challenge or engage in rapid prototyping.

Ultimately, we want to empower students to own their learning. So, it goes beyond simply providing choices and into a place where students can ask the questions, own the assessment process, and self-select the scaffolding. It can help to ask the question, "What am I doing for students that they could be doing for themselves?"

#4: Minimize distractions

I often hear people say that creative classroom are filled with "controlled chaos." There's probably an element of truth to this. When students are making things, they will be moving around and talking and it might even get loud. However, this can also be distracting. It's not a bad thing to reduce clutter or decrease noise and allow students to reach that state of hyper-focus.

It can also help to slow down. Here's where you provide longer learning opportunities with fewer interruptions. In my first few years of teaching, I thought student engagement required an action-packed classroom. I didn't realize that my frantic pace was actually getting in the way. Students never had the chance to focus in a leisurely, relaxed way. Since then, I've realized it's less about action and more about suspense. If there's a true challenge that feels meaningful to students, they are more likely to stay focused and get lost in what they are doing.

#5: Help Students with Metacognition

If you want students to determine goals and then monitor and adjust their approach, they need to engage in metacognition. Although there are many models for metacognition, most of them share some sort of variation on a cycle with the following components:

Assess the task

Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses

Plan the approach

Apply strategies (and monitor progress)

Reflect on whether the approach is working - in order to adjust and assess again

As an educator, you can model metacognition by talking through the process of assessing the task and determining an approach. It can help to ask students to visualize what they will do in order to accomplish a task. This can be as complicated as a formal plan or as simple as a quick pair-share. You can also incorporate reflection into things like exit slips and self-reflection surveys. When working in collaborative groups, students can engage in metacognition through the project planning process.

But this requires a shift in how we think about assessment. It means students will need to engage in frequent peer feedback and self-assessment. It might also mean pulling students aside for quick one-on-one conferences.

Making It a Reality

There is no magic formula for reaching a state of flow. These flow experiences are rare in the classroom, partly because it requires total buy-in from students. We can't make students hit that state of hyperfocus or fall in love with the learning process. But we can create the conditions that make it possible for students to reach a state flow. And when they reach a place of creative flow, they are more likely to fall in love with the creative process and continue with that maker mindset even when they leave your classroom.

You are the architect. You can design the structures that take student engagement to the next level, where they aren't simply engaged in the task but truly empowered to own their learning.

If you are passionate about seeing students develop a creative mindset and you love those moments where they reach a state of flow, would you share your story in the comment section below? Would you also share any questions, tips, and ideas for anyone else?

You can also sign up below and get the Flow Theory Blueprint and Toolbox, with free resources you can use to help your students reach optimal engagement. Also, I wrote a book on this topic if you're interested.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Five Ways to Boost Student Engagement with Flow Theory

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If we want students to develop a maker mindset, we need to empower them to hit a state of creative flow. Flow Theory explains what happens when we hit that place of "optimal experience," where you are fully engaged, present, and focused. The following blog post explores what it means to help students reach a state of flow.

# data[].attributes.headline
THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

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THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.

# data[].attributes.headline
THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

# data[].attributes.subject
THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.

# data[].attributes.headline
THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

# data[].attributes.subject
THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.

# data[].attributes.headline
THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

# data[].attributes.subject
THE MYSTERIOUS  WORKING OF THE ADOLESCENT BRAIN

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Why do teenagers seem so much more impulsive, so much less self-aware than grown-ups? Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore compares the prefrontal cortex in adolescents to that of adults, to show us how typically "teenage" behavior is caused by the growing and developing brain.

# data[].attributes.body
https://fs.cignition.com/cblog/what-neuroscience-can-tell-us-about-making-fractions-stick

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cignition Blog | Neuroscience of Learning

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Neuroscience of Learning | Cignition Blog - latest news and articles on neuroscience, pedagogy and game-based learning for elementary and middle school math students

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Original article: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/46865/what-neuroscience-can-tell-us-about-making-fractions-stick

Fractions are a notoriously tricky part of elementary math education for many children. Too often teachers struggle to ensure students are grasping the conceptual underpinnings of this complicated topic, resorting to "tricks" that will help them learn the procedures of adding or multiplying instead. This is particularly troubling because studies have shownthat students' knowledge of sixth grade fractions is a good predictor of their math achievement in high school. This is largely because a deep understanding of fractions plays out in algebra.

"If a student has a solid understanding of fractions and precisely what they represent, they're likely to perform much better with algebra," said Valorie Salimpoor, a researcher at the Rotman Research Institute in Toronto, during an edWeb presentation on the neuroscience of fractions. She thinks educators have an opportunity to leverage what researchers know about brain science to ensure students learn fractions well, but also admits that learning math is cognitively taxing.

Learning a new math concept takes a toll on the brain not only because of the new math concepts, but also because students must recruit many parts of the brain to solve any problem. For example, students need visuospatial and auditory working memory when solving a fractions problem, and they must focus attention, inhibit distractions, order tasks, recall information from long term memory and integrate new concepts into an old schema. There's a lot of mental processing going on when learning math, so understanding how careful brain-based instruction can prime the brain for new learning becomes extra important.
OPTIMIZE INFORMATION PROCESSING
When a person learns something new she forms a connection between two previously unconnected neurons. If that connection is weak, the new learning can easily be lost through forgetting. But the stronger the pathway and the more ways a person has learned the information, the more likely it will become encoded into long term memory.

To improve a student's information processing around fractions neuroscience tells us teachers should both present information and give students ways to interact with it, in a variety of ways. For example, explaining how to add fractions only uses an auditory pathway. Showing fractions on a line graph or as a pie chart are two other ways of presenting the same information. Asking students to visualize parts of the whole and show fractions using manipulatives are two more ways.

"Every time you are visualizing this in a different way, you are recruiting different neurons and neural connections," Salimpoor said. And she says active learning through problem solving or manipulation is a whole different ballpark neurally than passively listening, partly because even if a student looks like she is listening she still may not be paying attention.

"In one case you are passively absorbing information and in the other case you have to initiate the motor sequences and carrying them through," Salimpoor said. When students are actively learning they are using the frontal lobe to determine what needs to happen next and to organize the information, as well as the motor regions of the brain to carry it out.

"The more areas we recruit, the more elaborate this network becomes," Salimpoor said. That's important because later when the student tries to recall the new information and pings one node in the network, the entire system is primed to help retrieve the information. It's also important for students to continue recalling that information in order to strengthen the network, even if a concept was introduced in many ways initially. Ultimately for something to be learned well it needs to be integrated into the student's general schema, which happens through practice.
STRENGTHENING NEURAL NETWORKS
Practicing a new concept is one way good way to strengthen a neural network, but if students only practice using one problem solving strategy, that practice is leading to memorizing, not deep conceptual knowledge. To strengthen the whole network and by doing so deepening understanding, they must practice using various ways of visualizing and solving the same problem.

"It's most important to create problems where students have to initiate and come up with their own solutions," Salimpoor said. "This makes a big difference. You can never have too much of that."

Neurochemicals like dopamine can also create shortcuts to encoding information. The brain releases dopamine in response to novelty or when a person is anticipating something and doesn't know what's going to happen. When a student is emotionally invested in the learning or finds it intrinsically motivating, dopamine is also present. And dopamine helps strengthen neural networks.

Salimpoor uses the dopamine trick whenever she wants her toddler son to learn something new. She knows he loves trains, so if she can fold whatever new information she wants him to learn within a train narrative she knows he will be paying attention, intrinsically motivated and releasing dopamine that will help hardwire the new concepts. Rewards can also be a way to get at dopamine, but Salimpoor warns external rewards are never going to be as powerful as getting students to personally care about the learning.
GETTING AT CONCEPTUAL UNDERSTANDING
One of the trickiest things about helping students develop a deep conceptual understanding of a topic like fractions is that each student is coming into the learning experience not only with different levels of math knowledge, but also with different levels of working memory, executive functioning skills, ability to pay attention, and all the other non-content skills related to learning.

One way a teacher can use brain science to help students get at the deeper concepts is to relieve the pressure on students working memories as they are learning the new information. Salimpoor says working memory is a big challenge for many children. "If you can't hold all of this new information in your mind, you can't really process it," she said. And if the information isn't getting processed, it isn't getting integrated into the large schema a child holds in his head of how things work.

"While some students might be very skilled at working memory, the ones who aren't as good really suffer because they can't take in all that information and process it, so they just tune out," Salimpoor said. Teachers can be aware of this and try to break concepts down into the cognitive elements, always being mindful of how many pieces of new information the children need to hold in their minds at the same time to solve a problem.

When possible teachers can give students supports, like visuals representing the fractions, to work with as they are introduced to a concept. When the student has the visual, he doesn't have to hold the symbolic representation of the fraction in his working memory as he figure out how to add the two together. After the concept has been introduced, teachers can slowly remove those scaffolds. Writing information down is another way student can offload some of what would be stored in working memory.

Working memory is one challenge, but it is very hard for teachers to identify all the specific ways students differ from one another cognitively. This is where technology can help.

Salimpoor has helped design a video game focused on adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions -- the skills any student should have mastered by the end of sixth grade -- that puts all her neuroscience expertise for learning into the game mechanics. Called Fog Stone Islandand produced by Cignition, the game is free and available online to teachers and students. Salimpoor said the game tracks the intangible information like working memory ability and executive functioning that a teacher would have a hard time identifying.

Salimpoor and her Cignition colleagues know full well that there are a lot of commercial games promising cognitive training that don't deliver. There are also a lot of math games that are essentially procedural math disguised in a game form. The Fog Stone Island designers wanted to move away from both these models to develop a game that uses intrinsic and external rewards, offers multiple pathways to understand fractions, gives working memory support at the beginning of a task and slowly takes it away, and is situated within a context in which fractions would actually be used.

"We've tried to think of real life scenarios when you'd use math," Salimpoor said. So, for example, in one corner of the immersive Fog Stone Island world, players use raw materials to build structures, a bit like Minecraft. The bricks have different lengths and the player must add like and unlike denominators to build a wall. Early in the concept the game provides a digital sketchbook -- essentially virtual working memory -- for students to use.

"Students can understand what they need to do in the situation without taxing their other cognitive abilities," Salimpoor said. As they progress through the game they will gradually take over those working memory functions within the greater problem. Salimpoor finds it a little odd that she has ended up working on a video game, but she wants good brain-based practices to be embedded in teaching and found that video games were a far easier way to affect the many mental processes recruited when solving math problems.

Because Fog Stone Island is an immersive game, players can wander between the house building area, a farm plot and other zones that work on different elements of fractions. "The reason we wanted to keep it all in one game is it helps with investment," Salimpoor said. Success in one area can lead to success in another area, and the different ways of working with fractions are integrated so students can develop a deep understanding of how the concepts are connected.

Salimpoor said the great thing about the game is that it adapts to the player's level not just of math knowledge, but also working memory and executive functioning needs too. But Salimpoor is proud of how hard she and the designers worked to build those support skills into the game in a natural way that makes sense for the game. For example, rather than playing a silly side game that requires a player to repeat a sequence forward and then backwards -- a common working memory exercise -- Fog Stone Island may require a player to remember five items in the service of building part of his world. Now there's an intrinsic motivation to build up working memory.

"In the video game we can do that so in depth," Salimpoor said. "And really understand where each child is in each of these areas." She says the latest iteration of the game is getting good reviews from students, who want to play even when it isn't required for class. And very preliminary research results indicate that students are deepening their fractions knowledge outside of the game too, although those effects are still being studied.

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What Neuroscience Can Tell Us About Making Fractions Stick - Mind/Shift KQED Article

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Original article: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/46865/what-neuroscience-can-tell-us-about-making-fractions-stick Fractions are a notoriously tricky part of elementary math education for many children. Too often teachers struggle to ensure students are grasping the conceptual underpinnings of this complicated topic, resorting to "tricks" that will help them learn the procedures of adding or multiplying instead.

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Problemi di stereopsi; con Susan Barry:
http://www.stereosue.com/

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TEDxPioneerValley - Sue Barry - Fixing My Gaze

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Problemi di stereopsi; con Susan Barry:
http://www.stereosue.com/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
TEDxPioneerValley - Sue Barry - Fixing My Gaze

# data[].attributes.body
Problemi di stereopsi; con Susan Barry:
http://www.stereosue.com/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
TEDxPioneerValley - Sue Barry - Fixing My Gaze