Warming up the classroom: music, mindfulness, and reflection in PBL

Description

Athletes must warm up and concentrate before any performance. Why, then, do we expect our students to instantly become active when they enter a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) session? Active participation is very important in PBL, but the atmosphere sometimes requires a small assistance for the change of gear. 

Joanna Kuczyńska, a PhD Candidate in Lifelong Learning at the Maastricht University Research Centre for Education and the Labour Market (ROA), realised that students also require a "mental warm-up." She shares her own classroom experiments, using simple but effective methods – music for the mood, mindfulness for the nerves, and reflection to fix insights – which transform the experience in the tutorial and establish skills for lifelong learning.