Mindfulness and Meditation
in the Classroom
Patricia Larash
Division of Rhetoric, CGS
5th Annual Instructional Innovation Conference
CEIT, Boston University
Mindfulness and Meditation
in the Classroom
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Why mindfulness?
What is mindfulness?
Where will mindfulness take you?
How to have a one-minute meditation
Select bibliography
Appendices
Why mindfulness?
“If you understand how you think and work, you
can have more control over who you will become.
Abilities can improve as you understand how your
mind works. ... Creative and critically thinking
people open a conversation with themselves that
allows them to understand, control, and improve
their own minds and work.”
--Ken Bain, What the Best College
Students Do (2012), p. 64.
What is mindfulness?
• “Novelty” mindfulness
• “Awareness” mindfulness
“Novelty” mindfulness
“Mindfulness is a flexible state of mind in which
we are actively engaged in the present, noticing
new things and sensitive to context.”
--Ellen J. Langer, “Mindful
Learning” (2000), p. 220.
“Awareness” mindfulness
“...a nonjudgemental [sic] awareness of one’s
experience. ... observing the fact that one is
thinking.”
--Brian D. Ostafin and Kyle T. Kassman,
“Stepping out of history: Mindfulness
improves insight problem solving” (2012),
p. 1031, note 1.
Where will mindfulness take you?:
Responsibility
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Growth
Courtesy
Ethics
Success
How to have a one-minute meditation
• Introduce the purpose of the meditation
• Explain what to do (choosing an object and
how to bring one’s attention to it)
• Anticipate concerns. Emphasize nonjudgment
• Direct participants to take stock of the object
• Mark the start of the silence
• Gently bring participants out of the silence
Select Bibliography
• Mindfulness and meditation in general
• Mindfulness and meditation in education
Mindfulness and meditation in general
Gunaratana, Bhante Henepola. Mindfulness in Plain
English. Updated and expanded edition. Boston:
Wisdom Publications, 2002. Print.
Healey, Tara. "Mindfulness MP3 Downloads." Harvard
Pilgrim Health Care. For Visitors. Mind the Moment.
Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc., 2012. Web. 8 Dec.
2012.
Kabat-Zinn, Jon. Wherever You Go, There You Are.
Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. New York:
Hyperion, 2005. Print.
Mindfulness and meditation in
education
Bain, Ken. What the Best College Students Do. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 2012. Print.
Langer, Ellen J. "Mindful Learning." Current Directions in Psychological Science
9.6 (Dec. 2000): 220-223.
Langer, Ellen, and Minhea Moldoveanu. "The Construct of Mindfulness."
Journal of Social Issues 56.1 (2000): 1-9.
Ostafin, Brian D. and Kyle T. Kassman. "Stepping Out of History: Mindfulness
Improves Insight Problem Solving." Consciousness and Cognition 21 (2012):
1031-1036.
Palmer, Parker J. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a
Teacher’s Life, 10th Anniversary Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007.
Print.
Appendices
• Contexts
• Preliminary results of in-class questionnaire
Contexts
Existing
Potential
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• Creative and critical
thinking
• Arts (performing and
fine)
• Athletic training
• Math and science
• Psychology,
neuroscience, education
Health care
Business
Athletics
Elementary schools
Prisons
Preliminary results of in-class
questionnaire
Introductory text:
“I’d like to find out how our one-minute meditations are working for
you, to see how I can make our class time more effective and talk
about what I’m doing with other faculty members. I will collate the
class’s responses and share with you what I’ve learned (in the
aggregate, anonymized.”
Administered in the middle of lecture class (all four sections
combined), Monday, 4 March 2013. Students were offered five
minutes to fill out the questionnaire; many of them ended early. I was
in the room the entire time but asked a student to collect the
questionnaires and give them to me at the end of class.
34 students participated. 5 other students were absent from class that
day.
1. What in-class benefits, if any, are
you finding from our one-minute
meditations?
• Reporting benefits: 32
• Not reporting benefits: 2
2. What in-class problems, if any, are
you finding from our one-minute
meditations?
• Not reporting problems: 23
• Reporting problems: 11 (all distinct
respondents)
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Distracting (other students) 2
Sleepiness 6
Other students "try to postpone work" 1
"sometimes can't focus"/"get distracted by my
own thoughts" 2
3. What connections, if any, are you
finding between our one-minute
meditations and your life outside of
our RH classroom (studies, personal
life, etc.)?")
• Reporting connections: 22
• Not reporting connections: 12
4. What would you like me to know as
I consider how, or whether, to
continue this practice with my
students next year?
• Response supports continuing: 27
• Response is neutral/no response/ambiguous:
4
• Response opposes continuing: 3
5. What experience, if any, did you
have with meditation before practicing
one-minute meditations in RH class?
-Reported prior experience: 17
(See next slide for breakdown)
-Reported no prior experience: 17
Breakdown of prior meditation
experience among the 17 respondents
who reported having had some
• In yoga class: 8
-one respondent (included above) "was forced to do yoga for sports";
may have negative connotations for this respondent
• In an academic setting (HS): 6
--AP Psychology class 1
--"My school required a day of meditation once a year" 1
--Health class 1
--Writing class 1
--"there was an entire class dedicated to it" 1 (not sure whether
respondent means an entire course, or one class period out of the
semester)
--"five minute quiet time every day” 1
• --Other: 4
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--Housemates meditate 1 (same as one of the yoga respondents)
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--"a little" (no details given) 2
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--"relaxing" (no details given) 1