Flow Experiences and Flowing Exercises in the Classroom

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 1, University of Frankfurt (Main), language: English, abstract: Over the years, the concepts and methods of education have changed and we can see a trend away from only memorizing content and facts for a short period of time towards more alternative methods such as different motivational approaches which helps the students to memorize contents for a longer period of time. Elements of Positive Psychology (Martin Seligman) and Flow Experiences (Mihaly Csikszentmihaly) are principles which now occur in the school curriculum of many schools in Germany. 'Schulfach Glück' includes those principles and is a concept to foster the students' autonomy and their abilities to reflect on themselves and helps the students to actively incorporate and participate in the classroom by being a welcome change of the usual framework. The first part of this paper deals with the psychological aspects and backgrounds of flow including the eight characteristics of flow experiences. The second part will examine the flow experience class taught in the seminar, the planning process of the lesson, as well as the didactic and methodic considerations of the class. I will also evaluate the implications that this topic had for me and my future teaching and reflect the taught session and the topic.