Flow
From the Wikipedia article on Flow (psychology), the list below seems to describe some of what is happening in one of those really good lessons.
As Csikszentmihalyi sees it, there are components of an experience of flow that can be specifically enumerated; he presents eight:I can’t resist linking to a C2 article on working conditions that might help professional staff – in this case programmers – reach a flow state easily. Food for thought about teachers staff rooms?
- Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernable).
- Concentrating and focusing, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
- A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
- Distorted sense of time – our subjective experience of time is altered.
- Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
- Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is not too easy or too difficult).
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
- The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
- Not all of these components are needed for flow to be experienced.