Czikszentmihalyi & 'flow', Liljedahl and 'flow' in the Thinking Classroom

 

 Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, the late Hungarian-American psychologist, has studied a state he calls 'flow', where people are completely engaged and delighted in a process of problem-solving, and our normal sense of time is suspended. Here is a link to his TED talk on this topic from 2004.  

Professor Peter Liljedahl from SFU Math Education has taken up the idea of 'flow' in both a descriptive and prescriptive way for our math classrooms. Here are his slides shared from his session at the Northwest Math Teachers' Conference in 2015. Peter's books on Building Thinking Classrooms in Mathematics K-12 have resonated strongly with math teachers in Canada and internationally. Here's a link to his website on Thinking Classrooms, an interesting
short article on Edutopia about Thinking Classrooms

How can we, as teachers, promote "flow" and happiness in our mathematics classes? What kind of activities might help students feel immersed and excited in problem-solving and other mathematical undertakings?