The Zone of Proximal Flow in K-12 Creative Collaborative eLearning: A synthesis of the zone of proximal development and creative flow

Creative collaborative eLearning occurs when learners create and learn the same task online in groups for shared creation and discovery aiming at new knowledge co-construction. It empowers and enables them to generate and explore ideas and discuss and evaluate them through their active engagement in socio-cultural learning [1]. Nonetheless, it raises challenges regarding the organization and convergence of collaborative eLearning activities as well as the design of such tools that can enhance or obstruct student groups' socio-dynamics [2]. These are essential at a very early age so K-12 students can learn to socially interact with each other for creative learning activities.

Socio-cultural Learning

Each cognitive function in the child's cultural and cognitive development occurs twice: first, at the social level, and later, at the individual level [1]. Learning is both an individual function of human intellect occurring in each person’s brain and a socio-cultural function through communication and interaction. Collaborative eLearning depends on dynamic and organic situations and is determined by the context in which it takes place. Vygotsky introduced the zone of proximal development as part of socio-cultural learning and knowledge construction [1]. ZPD is the distance between a child's actual level of development, as determined by independent problem solving, and the highest level of potential development under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers. That initial help is required from students at similar levels of asymmetry so that they can help each other [3]. This is a level of development attained when children engage in social behavior including the bridge stage between kindergarten and primary school. The K-12 student can learn to actively participate in critical planning and decision-making in learning when interacting at different points in ZPD. The pillars of this approach are:

Individual development is a product of creative and productive social interaction between the experienced and the novice by internalizing such social interaction.

• The creatively enhanced environment plays a leading role in learning.
• Learning occurs in situ in specific and authentic contexts.
• Learning is a social process and occurs in ZPD.
• Mediation and learning enhancement happen through mental/technological tools and artifacts.

The coexistence of individual and team learning symmetry can be supported by diversity and inclusion as ZPD can be expanded due to greater asymmetry between team members. It can be achieved by sharing knowledge, skills, and experiences based on precisely aligning this initial asymmetry through inclusion. Thus, the teacher becomes the orchestrator of the educational activities. The creative interaction between the individual and their social experience can be understood as an individual process of construction of meaning within sociocultural environments based on the idiosyncratic structure of knowledge and understanding. Therefore, there is a need to organize and converge the levels of asymmetry to the symmetry of knowledge, skills, and abilities between the team members, such as the 4Cs+D skills in eLearning (creativity, communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and digital skills)

Creative Flow

Creative flow occurs when there is a balance between the skill and challenge of the task at hand [4, 5]. It is a unique cognitive process and reflects the transference to the state of creativity as experience. During creative flow, time passes quickly, concentration is heightened, and the sense of self is lost as one gains a sense of supreme satisfaction and flow by performing the activity in the zone. Flow is often associated with productivity and high performance as it evokes euphoria and satisfaction. The students feel good about themselves and enjoy using their skills to meet the challenges of high-concentration tasks. Time, self, problems, and worries begin to disappear. The creative flow requires specific factors [6], such as:

• Clear goals to define the level of challenge and high level of skill.
• Balance between skill level and problem-solving challenge.
• Absolute concentration and focus of attention resulting in complete absorption in the learning activity.
• Loss of external environmental stimuli conveyed by the senses.
• Distorted sense of time, usually time remains in the 'present’.
• Immediate feedback with or without reflection on creative output.
• Feeling in control of the situation or activity.
• Intrinsic drive and reward from engaging in the activity so that there is effortless action.
• Lack of awareness of bodily needs for some time.
• Minimal creative stress.

Creative flow is rather difficult to support and sustain in creative K-12 eLearning activities. However, creating eLearning immersive worlds can capture the students’ interests and enthusiasm. For example, in educational digital storytelling [7, 8], self-awareness can evoke a sense of release and freedom, and an increased sense of well-being and happiness. Students commit to performing the activity, feel that their work has meaning and value, and enjoy their involvement in it. Their feelings can cause an elated mix of emotions because, during this state, negative factors such as worries, concerns, and stress are reduced or avoided altogether, leading to a general sense of euphoria and well-being. The students feel in full control of their actions; they actively engage and focus on challenges with increasing satisfaction and enjoyment, self-esteem, and confidence.

The Zone of Proximal Flow (ZPF)

In creative collaborative eLearning, ZPD merges with the flow, known as the Zone of Proximal Flow (ZPF). During ZPF, students are in a blissfully engaged state of creative fulfillment under three conditions, created by the teacher:

1. Organizing and aligning activities with a clear set of goals to give direction and structure to the work and project.
2. Balancing between the challenges as perceived by each team member and their skills. One must have confidence in themselves and believe they can handle the task or project. Usually, K-12 students don't know they can do something precisely because they are unaware of the effort required, which may ultimately be much less than they think.
3. Providing clear and immediate feedback to adjust performance to meet goals.

The full involvement or absorption in ZPF eLearning depends on the diverse levels of the group members’ knowledge of their abilities, which allow, support, and create conditions for imminent development—that is, the development of the skills of each member and the achievement of symmetry in the group in total. Such active participation is mainly observed when students have a positive attitude toward productivity, progress, and creation. The more one strengthens their skills and abilities, the more creative and productive they are in less time.

ZPF Pedagogy

Creative flow happens individually to each student while learning in ZPD is collective. The challenge is that students can individually be in the flow process as an immersive experience of a learning task while at the same time, they are in ZPD. Consequently, ZPF is suitable for student groups that require co-creativity and challenge for the creation of new ideas and educational activities, beyond the individual knowledge and skill levels of the group members. When the learning objectives create demands that exceed the learners’ abilities, they leave the flow state and move into ZPD. If at this point the student is given the proper instructions and support, exactly what they need at the time they need it, the student will return to the creative flow state, having at the same time developed his skill level and avoiding the stress caused when the demands are greater than the skills [9]. Thus, the loss of knowledge is minimized, while the changes in emotional states from the association of requirements with skills are supported by their teachers through diverse and appropriate pedagogical approaches [9].

Figure 1. Zone of Proximal Flow (ZPF). Synthesis of the creative flow and the zone of proximal development (ZPD) for students??? requirements and skills.
[click to enlarge]

A key idea of teaching in creative collaborative eLearning is that it is linked to the learning material with careful planning and organization in creative educational activities. Learning-curves analysis can support the learning steps with flexible processes for acquiring knowledge, effective problem-solving skills, self-organized learning, 4Cs+D, and intrinsic motivation to achieve the highest level of development. Thus, the chosen pedagogical approaches may have the following characteristics [8]:

• They are based on learner-centered sociocultural learning.
• Learning takes place in creative small groups.
• Teachers act as facilitators, orchestrators, or guides of learning processes and activities.
• A problem, question, or phenomenon is the basis and theme for:
  • organized educational activities,
  • intrinsic motivation to learn, and
  • developing and applying problem-solving skills.
• New knowledge and skills are acquired through self-organized and collaborative eLearning to support students' self-regulation and autonomy.

The students’ interest and enthusiasm about the theme can contribute to their engagement by activating motivation, and thus, the continuation of their engagement and, consequently, learning [10]. Because creativity generates euphoria, even the most challenging activities can be satisfactory and ultimately motivate students to continue taking on new challenges. Hence, the learning objectives can change. According to research results [8,10], pedagogical approaches significantly influence the possibility of a student’s engagement in the educational process or not, when, the balance in the relationship between requirements and skills is disturbed. The degree of control of the creative task by the students, or the relevance of the teaching topic to the subject of education, also seems to be decisive. 

Orchestrating and converging eLearning objectives through creative eLearning activities engages and retains students in ZPF by increasing learning and skill levels. Hence, obsession with the planned teaching plan does not leave room for further development; students lose their concentration and interest and consider the activity foreign and uninteresting [11]. On the contrary, when the teaching plan is flexible, teaching can be adapted to their real needs, shaping it together with the students. Thus, students have exactly the kind of help they need when it is needed and remain in ZPF maintaining their interest undiminished.

Cases of coexistence of the social element with the individual in ZPF are observed in K-12 play and creative educational possibilities [8, 11, 12, 13]. In educational digital storytelling, the students create stories with a sense of responsibility and control over their learning process and outcomes. The results showed while children were in their ZPF, they recalled pre-existing learning and guidance from past instances and used these experiences in their current activity. In these cases, the teacher's role was to provide access to materials that would cause this behavior. Thus, each student can achieve their goals individually and collectively, that is, to achieve goals they can or cannot achieve alone with the input or even the encouragement of others. Teachers and peers can provide significant encouragement for the successful fulfillment of the learning goal with organized, reinforcing, and convergent activities guided and orchestrated so that students enter and remain in ZPF.

Multimodal Learning Analytics in Creative Collaborative eLearning

eLearning environments need to support and enhance students’ creative collaborative eLearning in ZPF. For example, the use of multimodal learning analytics [7] can serve a multitude of creative collaborative eLearning functions for monitoring, analysis, assessment, and recommendation [14]. The Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR) defines learning analytics as the measurement, collection, analysis, and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which it occurs [15]. Learning analytics sits at the convergence of learning (e.g., educational research, learning, and assessment sciences, educational technology), analytics (e.g., statistics, visualization, computer/data sciences, artificial intelligence), and user/learner-centered design (e.g., pedagogical usability and social computing) [16]. Relevant modalities suggest diverse data collection, such as text, audio, video, interaction logs, texts, and interactive and transmedia content. The result of the team-based collection and analysis of collaboration data is actionable knowledge that can be used for teams and learning regulation, recommendation, and decision-making for teachers and students.

In conclusion, groups of students actively engage in educational activities on both individual and team levels. The coexistence of individual and team learning symmetry occurs within two zones: the proximal development and the creative flow. ZPF is their synthesis; the students are in a blissfully engaged state of creative fulfillment during the learning processes. Help is provided with guidance focused on the problem and the new skill, either by the teacher or by more skilled and experienced peers. Thus, the students do not escape from ZPF because they cannot solve the problem, and the social dimension of the group coexists with the individual one. If the students learn how to create and learn together at a very young age, their potential, abilities, and socio-dynamics can be incremental for their lifelong learning path. Creative and collaborative eLearning ecologies must support the dual persona of the learners as users who actively engage and remain within the ZPF.

References

About the Author

Niki Lambropoulos (Lampropoulou) specializes in creative storytelling, creative, collaborative, and sociocultural learning as well as digital storytelling and digital culture, in digital humanities. She has extensively published in her research field. She holds a Ph.D. from London South Bank University, after which she was a recipient of a Marie Curie postdoctoral research fellowship funded by the EU. She also received an M.A. in ICT in education from the Institute of Education, UCL, University of London, certification in creative writing from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and screenwriting from the University of East Anglia. She finished her B.A. at the Pedagogical Academy of Tripolis and the University of Athens in Greece. She holds a diploma in education from Maraslio, and more than 30 years of educational experience in primary and higher educational levels in Greece, the U.K., and France. In her spare time, she writes scripts for the big screen and has won international awards and accolades.