“Turn it up! Where’s your sensory threshold?”

Have you ever been to a concert that was so loud, that once you left, all you could hear was a massive ringing? After events of such intensity, we struggle to hear. We may ask our companions to speak louder. We may turn up the volume on our devices. And, in general, we may try to make everything louder when we should be taking the time to let our auditory system rest. Otherwise, we risk getting caught in a spiral of continuously pumping up the volume.

In Western psychology, there’s the idea of a sensory threshold. A threshold is the level of intensity required for something to be detected. After a rock concert, you could say that your auditory threshold is much higher because you’ve become temporarily desensitized. You can’t quite hear all the nuances that you did before the concert. In the United States, our culture of high-stimulation and constant interactivity promotes a very high overall threshold for stimulation. We seek greater levels of intensity because our thresholds for stimulation are so high.

The way students approach education is no different. There’s a reason why so many students are disengaged. There’s a reason why the old system of education isn’t working as well as it did. The reason is that humans (especially those in younger generations) are developing higher sensory thresholds. As time passes, humans can process more and more information, largely due to shifts in how we communicate. “The medium is the message” has never been truer.

We are the in the digital era, where teachers and students alike are immersed in media. Despite swimming in a sea of information technology (IT), it seems that very few educators are managing to successfully integrate the most valuable IT tools into curricula.

What can be done? Let education evolve with students. It’s the only way.

In order to help you adapt with modern students, every week, we will post a tip on engaging and inspiring “digital natives.”

For this first week, we show you how to enthuse your students by taking advantage of a very important, but infrequently-cited psychological state: “Flow.”

Tip #1: Take Advantage of “Flow”

“Go with the flow!”

Have you ever been “in the zone,” “on point,” or “in the moment?” Of course you have! And when you were, you were probably in “Flow.” Flow is a state of being so totally immersed in an activity that everything else seems to recede from your consciousness. It’s like you become one with the activity. Flow coincides with peak performance. Any activity or skill that provides a challenge, requires great focus, and uses a lot of your sensory bandwidth can put you in flow. Whether it’s sports, videogames, drawing, dancing, or driving, if it requires a lot of focus, you can probably go into flow doing it.

Consider the potential for flow as you create lessons and activities for students. If they are accustomed to being in flow due to their highly interactive personal lives, how are they going to feel when a learning activity is simply stop-and-go and doesn’t require sustained focus? Distraction and boredom will abound.

In general, there seem to be three qualities that that will keep students in flow when engaging in an activity:

• The activity has definite goals and progress points. These provide a clear focus that students may work toward.
• The activity has nearly instantaneous feedback that prompts the participant to adjust to real-time changes in condition. This level of feedback is common to most flow-prone activities. How much real-time feedback does a person receive when navigating through traffic? How much feedback do students take in on the playing field when they coordinate with team members and react to opponents? If you can integrate this level of feedback into learning activities, you can keep students focused and on-task.
• Activities should be challenging but not too challenging. There is a sweet spot. The participant needs to have confidence that they are capable of doing the task, but they must also be somewhat challenged or they risk falling into the bored state. The fulcrum of flow is between overwhelming challenge and underwhelming boredom.

Need some help thinking of creative ways to promote “flow” in your students? Consider taking our signature course, Technology Driven Classrooms (TDC). It will redefine how you interact with your students.

Be sure to check back next week for our second tip on engaging and inspiring digital natives!

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