Learning Through Play Syndicate Meeting 29 May
A Group of us meet to discuss play learning after school.
Mike shared a part of the video clip in my previous play blog and we looked at how Tony Brown's research on play has informed the principals of innovation at Stanford university
"From Play to Innovation is a class focused on enhancing the innovation process with playfulness. We will investigate the human “state of play” to reach an understanding of its principal attributes and how important it is to creative thinking. We will explore play behavior, its development, and its biological basis. We will then apply those principles through design thinking to promote innovation in the corporate world. Students will work with real-world partners on design projects with widespread application"
It seems play needs to be seen in a serious light.
We discussed what play is and what it is not and thought about what we are already doing and finding as we see play in our classes.
We started a play inquiry as a collaborative team Link to inquiry spiral
For me I can see the children are choosing to play during choices time and this play encompass a wide range of activities, e.g. drawing, making towers with blocks, role play. It is engaging the children and I observe them in a state of flow.
When I keep them in teacher directed lesson mode for too long I observe them in their seats complying with the expectation of working on set tasks however they are really playing in their seats.
I am now giving them more freedom to choice play.
A next step will be developing their self management to ensure a reasonable level of noise so I can continue to teach small groups and also to get them to time manage so they complete set reading, writing and math's within their zone of proximal development.
Further Reading after the meeting _ The elements of play, Toward a philosophy and a definition of play Scott G Ederle
key thinking expressed is that play is very hard to define as we are looking at it through a set of ingrained values that prejudice us.
Handy diagram
Also discovered the following web site with lots of interesting readings etc about play
Future action to read more during holidays
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