Is Play good teaching practise?

Why Minimal Guidance During Instruction Does Not Work: An Analysis of the Failure of Constructivist, Discovery, Problem Based, Experiential, and Inquiry-Based Teaching . By P A Kirschner, J Sweller & R.E Clark 2016.

In trying to define where play fits within well researched and proven teaching practice. I have been looking for Research to support play based learning as good teaching practise. This appears to be an area where further research is needed. This lack of research was also highlighted in  The Importance of Play By Dr David Whitebread 2012. In this paper Kirschner, Sweller and Clark highlight that recent research in how our brain works as well as learning research highlight that mininal guided learning is not effective especially for novice learners.

http://lexiconic.net/wheatfromthechaff/archives/840  Refer also to this blog C Welch

This reading is not directly about Play. It is about minimal guidance during learning. It looks at approaches similar to play based learning like Discovery learning.

"The advantage of guidance begins to recede only when learners have sufficiently high prior knowledge to provide internal guidance"

It sees true learning being made when there is a change to long term memory.
Cognitive loading very important. When cognitive load high - little is retained in long term memory. 
Learners must construct a mental representation or schema irrespective of weather they are given complete or partial information. Complete information will result in a more accurate representation that is also more easily acquired
It finds that learners learn best hen they are directly instructed and scaffolded.

Learners should be explicitly shown what to do and how to do it when learning new information-skills etc. This is also supported in Early Years Training (IY)
Classes where students all achieved their learning goals Teachers spent a great deal of time in instructional interactions with their students  The teachers simultaneously taught content and scaffolded relevant procedures, they modeled procedures for identifying and self checking important information,

This reading finds that low achieving learners often prefer a minimally guided learning situations but there is clear evidence to show this does not support them to learn. In fact often the opposite happens and the student moves backwards. Students may prefer minimally guided situations as guided instruction requires them to apply explicit attention driven effort and so some learners do not like the demand this makes of them.


The key point in this reading is that all learners learn more through guided instruction. This is especially true for low achieving students. High achieving students may not learn as much through unguided approaches but generally they do not move backwards.

What now for my practice

Implications for play based learning - children will need lots of direct instruction regarding relating to others and solving disputes needs to be time to rove and work on this with the children. To do the roving there will be less time for direct instruction in other areas!

Rich tasks in Maths will need direct instruction. It is good practice to intervene and ensure children are on the right track-i.e. prevent false starts