Students engaged in active learning tend to be gloriously noisy. They share ideas and insights with each other. They write on whiteboards. They debate contentious topics. They work problems. They negotiate group projects.
In Genelle Belmas’s Gamification class, though, active learning took the form of silence – at least for a day.
That’s right. Silence — in a room with more than 100 students. A seat creaked now and then. Someone coughed. A notebook rustled. Otherwise, nothing. If you don’t believe me, listen to the video in the multimedia file below. Just don’t expect to hear much.
The silent approach in the classroom was part of an experiment in helping students reach a “flow state,” which Belmas, an associate professor of journalism, described as a state of mind “where everything is awesome.”
“Time melts away,” she said. “Ego melts away. You’re productive and you’re happy. That’s what I want these kids to get to.”
The idea of a flow state, Belmas said, comes from the psychologist Mihaly Csíkszentmihalyi, who argues that you must balance your skills against your challenges. Flow comes about when both skills and challenges are high.
“This fits into the gaming because research has demonstrated that people are happiest when they’re in a flow state,” Belmas said. “We want to keep people in a flow state in the game so that they accomplish the cool stuff that can be accomplished.”
The students in Gamification are working in teams to create games that Belmas calls “purpose driven.” Those games include one that will help children learn math, one that will focus on recycling, one that will help journalism students learn Associated Press style, and one that will help young adults learn money management.
Ideally, the games will push users into a flow state, just as the students pushed themselves into a flow state. Silence will be optional, though.