Hollingsworth, Patricia & Lewis, Gina (2006). Active Learning: Increasing Flow in the Classroom. Carmarthen, Wales: Crown House.

Flow—what it is and how to achieve it—is an excellent subtopic for a book on active learning. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990, p.4) describes flow as “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience itself is so enjoyable that people will do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” Teachers everywhere strive to create an atmosphere in their classroom in which this type of intrinsic motivation and focus will flourish.

Hollingsworth and Lewis provide an excellent introduction to flow. They explain that flow takes mental and emotional energy. It is a state of consciousness in which one is totally immersed in the activity at hand. The goal, essentially, is to make the kids forget that recess is coming up. They suggest that this is possible with high-interest active learning lessons that set out concrete, attainable goals; that vary in the pace of the activities; that use art and movement, and which engage all five senses.

Unfortunately, the final two-thirds of the book is made up of lesson plans that do not deliver on the promises of the introduction. Most of the lessons have been written by different individuals. The lessons are meant to be appropriate for diverse age ranges (often K-8), but writing for this broad a range only results in vague activities (i.e. “Drawing Faces,” p. 76) with limited learning objectives. On the other hand, some of the lessons with vague objectives are at least more creative than the traditional work: A language arts activity accompanying a reading of Charlotte’s Web asks students to complete a worksheet with true/false and multiple choice questions.

Missing from this collection is any kind of cohesion between the lessons. Nor is there instruction in how to use the given ideas as the core of integrated curriculum. For example, a suggested social studies lesson is to have students dramatize historical events. The stated learning objectives are that students learn the facts related to a particular event, research the people and clothing of the period, and practice their public speaking. No mention is made of the science, math, or literacy tie-ins that could easily be incorporated.

In sum, there are some interesting ideas contained in Active Learning: Increasing Flow in the Classroom, but the lesson plans are not sufficiently developed for use as is.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper & Row: New York.

Pages: 195     Price: £16.99     ISBN: 190442459-7

Reviewed by Marcy Zipke, PhD candidate at The Graduate Center, CUNY. Marcy’s specialization is literacy processes and instruction. Her research is on the contribution of metalinguistic awareness to reading comprehension. She has worked as an adjunct instructor of literacy and social studies courses as well as a substitute teacher at the preK-5 level.