The Presentation

Flow and Deep Learning: Preparing the Younger Generation for Global Crises

In this presentation, I focus on the connection between flow and deep learning, and the potential for learning environments fostering flow and deep learning to prepare emerging adults for times of crises. Topics addressed include how crisis affects learning, as well as the importance of deep learning in times of crisis, and how it is enabled by motivation, engagement, and flow. In this context, I present a 3-year, quasi-experimental study comparing students’ motivation, engagement, and deep learning of course materials between university students who took an undergraduate engineering course using a video game approach to a control group who took the course in the traditional way (centered on textbook problems and lab exercises). Students taking the game-based course reported greater engagement in deep learning characteristic of flow than students taking the course in the traditional way. Results were suggestive of the potential role of flow in preparing the younger generation for times of crisis. Specifically, the deep learning engendered can produce thinking that is complex, flexible, and sustainment-oriented. 

About the Speaker

David J. Shernoff, Ph.D., is director of the Center for Mathematics, Science and Computer Education (CMSCE) and Associate Professor in the Department of School Psychology at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology at Rutgers University. His research interests include student engagement and flow, STEM, STEAM, educational video games, makerspace education, and teacher professional development.

David says, "Among the many areas of flow research the Flow Conference will illuminate, I am elated that the conference is poised to penetrate the relationship between flow and learning processes, and the importance of this relationship for meaningfully engaging and educating subsequent generations."

My Offer

I presently serve as director of the Rutgers University Center for Mathematics, Science, and Computer Education (CMSCE). Please consider our many teacher professional development workshops in the area of integrated STEM and STEAM, including issues of engagement and motivation.

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