Education Innovation: Group Flow- Characteristics of Creative and Innovative PLC's

I have been reading the book Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration by Keith Sawyer. Of course, Education Innovation is all about taking ideas outside of education and looking for application in education. I thought of how Keith’s ideas would benefit Professional Learning Communities, grade level teams, or subject matter departments.

Keith describes something he calls Group Flow. It is inspired by the work of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who now works at the Claremont University's Drucker School in California. The term “flow” is a word used to describe, “… a particular state of heightened consciousness. He discovered that extremely creative people are at their peak when they experience ‘a unified flowing from one moment to the next, in which we feel in control of our actions, and in which there is little distinction between self and environment; between stimulus and response; or between past, present, and future.’”

I sat in a lot of grade level meeting and PLC’s and I can say for sure that I never saw any teachers experience heightened consciousness, but I would love to see it. However, we can hope that grade level teams would reach a point where they are focused, creative, collaborative, and effective.

Keith describes four characteristics found by Csikszentmihalyi that will help get teams into the “flow.”

“First, and most important, they’re doing something where there skills match the challenge of the task. If the challenge is to great for their skills, they become frustrated; but if the task isn’t challenging enough, they simply grow bored.”

So, if you teachers have the ability, knowledge, and training to complete what you are asking of them, then you can expect good results. However, much like our students, if they don’t have the skills or knowledge to complete the task they are going to get very frustrated with the task, with you, and not produce anything very useful. If, on the other hand, the task is so simple, do they really need to meet to do it? It is worth having them do, or is it just paperwork?

“Second, flow occurs when the goal is clear.”

We will take a closer look at goals in the next post.

“…third, when there’s constant and immediate feedback about how close you are to achieving that goal.”

If the goal is crystal clear, they will have a better time determining this on their own. A clear goal provides obvious feedback. But, principals should spend the time to immediately review the tasks you have asked your groups to perform to give feedback if necessary.

“Fourth, flow occurs when you’re free to concentrate fully on the task.”

In other words, don’t interrupt them. Eliminate sources of silly and wasteful interruptions. Value their time if you value the results.

Here is the beauty of flow. When teachers complain that meetings don’t produce much, you can share this with them.

“ Csikszentmihalyi found that the most common place people experienced flow was in conversation with others. At work, conversation with colleagues in one of the most flow inducing activities…”

So grade level, PLC’s, and department meetings are important for the opportunities they provide for conversation with their peers.

Catalytic Questions:

How might you create conditions for your teams to experience “flow?”

In what ways might you ensure that goals are matched to the skills of your teachers?

What shape might your grade levels, PLC’s, or department meetings take to ensure that “flow” is possible?

In what ways are you ensuring that goals are clear?

How might you ensure immediate feedback?

In what ways could you prevent interruptions of meetings?

2 Comments

I've been reading MC's work (not going to spell his name right now!) for some time. Great connection to PLC's in your post. I want to re-read this and be more thoughtful in my approach to our communities. How wonderful for the teams to be able to experience flow.

Posted by: scmorgan | July 02, 2008 at 05:37 PM