Exit Slip - 'Flow' in the Thinking Classroom

Overall, I think I may have been skeptical about some of the details he claimed, but I do agree with premise of flow. The parts I disagree on are the parts on are really just details on the studies he cited and what inferences we can make from them.

Nonetheless, I have relied on a similar psychological phenomenon the Yerkes-Dodson Arousal-Performance curve, as well as other stress theories, which I think aligns well with the findings of this theory. 

During my practicum I noticed students across the spectrum and I find it hard to generalize the situations because I find that challenge and skill level are so dependent on the individual level and I only observed such a small part of their lives. I also noticed students move from one section to another. I observed a student go from relaxation and control when working on simple problems to more of an arousal/flow state when faced with a trickier word problem. 

I think you can notice similar finding even in different types of classes. For example, maybe I'm kind of stereotyping, but I think more students in the Workplace Math classes seemed to not be able to reach the flow area, compared to students in Precalculus class. Some of them were quite skilled at math, but seemed to lack the motivation to challenge themselves. Others seemed to lack the skill, and were placed on range of the left side of the graph. Compared to a Precalculus class, I noticed that students seem to work in the higher ends of both challenge and skill level. I suppose this observation may be related to the students' investment in their learning as well. 

In my personal experience during the practicum, I found that I started in the anxiety area and move towards the arousal section. I find this pattern in a lot of new things I do. During my first lesson, with my FA watching I was quite nervous, but I have since gained more confidence. I think it is likely that I will hover between the categories in the upper half of this chart during my long practicum. I look forward to eventually finding myself consistently in the "flow" zone.