Hey OP, was your technique influenced by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow? I'm referring to the relationship between ability level and challenge. Do I see similarities with your clearly effective teaching style and some of the elements Video Game designers have almost unanimously implemented to great success?
I'm not sure "the relationship between ability level and challenge" is what MC means by flow, if that's what you're saying.
Q: "What is "the flow experience" and what does it have to do with motivation?
A: The flow experience is when a person is completely involved in what he or she is doing, when the concentration is very high, when the person knows moment by moment what the next steps should be, like if you are playing tennis, you know where you want the ball to go, if you are playing a musical instrument you know what notes you want to play, every millisecond, almost. And you get feedback to what you're doing. That is, if you're playing music, you can hear whether what you are trying to do is coming out right or in tennis you see where the ball goes and so on. So there's concentration, clear goals, feedback, there is the feeling that what you can do is more or less in balance with what needs to be done, that is, challenges and skills are pretty much in balance."
(Although it's on the shortlist, I didn't read 'Flow' yet so I may not be able to speak with authority about his work.)
Hey cool, thanks for the link. It's been a long time since I was in school but back then every homework assignment was 100% what we covered that day. So if the "lessons" became unclear many folks just got further and further behind and for many there was no recovering at some point because the teachers never wanted to deviate from their schedule. Btillys 1/3 1/3 1/3 structure really resonates with me because I can imagine I would feel confident and never get in over my head as the complexity of the work escalates. (And if I fell behind I could use his 10 minute improvisational time to get clear) But back to the confidence, Video Games Designers want the player to be challenged but also to feel confident and of course this balance has to remain throughout all levels of the game. Video Game Designers have long used MC's work to help them incorporate this balance. So, yes I do believe the relationship between ability and challenge is part of MC's agenda- there is more, of course. It is my understanding that Video Games are the most common contact most people usually have with MC's work.
I made a connection between the successful feeling of playing video games with the successful learning experiences in Btillys class's and it would be interesting if Btilly is aware of MC's work or if he had ever thought of what he does as MCesque. In closing, I think you and I are saying the same thing here. Thanks for the comment..
