The Relationship between Authenticity and FLOW

Constructivist scaffolding fits neatly into categories of authentic teaching and learning.  For purposes of this paper I will define authenticity following Newmann and his colleagues (Newmann, Byrk, & Nagaoka, 2001; Newmann, Marks, & Gamoran, 1995; Newmann, Secada, & Wehlage, 1995; Newmann & Wehlage, 1993).  For them, authenticity is defined as having three components:

·        Assignments and assessments must have value to the student beyond the four walls of the classroom.

·        Assignments and assessments must be academically rigorous, and

·        Assignments and assessments must have an audience beyond the teacher (this does not exclude the teacher from being a part of the audience).

Authentic teaching and learning environments encourage students to ask questions, to engage in important inquiry in the classroom and engage in optimal educational experiences.  Authenticity is, to a large extent, an active teacher process and a passive student process.  Students cannot plan for authenticity, only their teachers can do so.

Csikszentmihalyi (1990) describes what it is like for one to engage in what he calls the optimal experience.  Optimal experience as it relates to the classroom is, fundamentally, a participant active and teacher passive process.  In this sense, what Csikszentmihalyi calls FLOW and authenticity are flip sides of the same coin.  In FLOW the optimal experience may be understood as having the following components:

·        Activities must be challenging and require skills.

·        Activities must merge action and awareness.

·        Activities must provide clear goals and immediate feedback.

·        When engaged in optimal activities one must concentrate on the task at hand.

·        Optimal activities present the engaged participant with a paradox of control.

·        Participants in optimal activities experience a loss of self-consciousness.

·        Participants in optimal activities experience a transformation of time.

Both Newmann and his colleagues and Csikszentmihalyi argue for rigorous, interesting and meaningful work in the classroom.  While Newmann’s focus in on the teacher and her preparation for authentic work; Csikszentmihalyi focuses on the performance experience of the student himself.  Without teacher planning the optimal experience in the classroom is far less likely to occur than if the teacher plans for and, in turn, engages students in inquiry.  What is clear, looking at both Newman’s and Csikszentmihalyi’s constructions, is that an engaged student is more likely to perform well in school than one that is not engaged.  While this appears to be too obvious to commit to paper, it is my experience that students are not so engaged in the vast majority of schools across the country (Passman & McKnight, In Press).  The issue in question is how to engage students in long-term inquiry projects in the social studies classroom in which the inquiry is integrated into the defined themes of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS).