Understanding Play Based Learning - 1

What do we think of when we hear the word “play”? Usually, we imagine scenarios of freedom and exploration, meeting with friends, having fun, exploring, strategizing, being competitive and displaying our emotions and a place where we often lose a sense of time. There are a lot of memories associated with play for all of us. But one thing, central to play is that it makes us happy and it represents something meaningful for us. Education researchers have long argued and researched the benefits of play based learning in schools and how this can be integrated into the traditional school teaching pattern. In this article, we will take the first steps towards understanding play based learning, what does it mean in the context of schools and what principles govern its effective implementation in schools.

What is Play?

In broad terms, a playful activity is chosen by the players involved and hence it is meaningful to them. Play is imaginative and actively engaging to the players involved. Play is also somewhat repetitive in nature.

Being playful, however, is a mindset which involves one being open to create, learn, explore opportunities and have fun. In schools, it is this mindset which is crucial for playful learning to flourish. The mindset needs to be embedded in the school culture, starting from the school authorities and then percolating to the staff and then to the children. One may ask the question what playful learning looks like in schools, as the two terms “playful” and “learning” are quite distinct from one another.

What does Playful learning in school look like?

By common understanding, play and learning are paradoxical to each other. Play usually would mean letting children be free, a scenario where they make their own decisions and choices, have fun and display emotions. Whereas, a traditional classroom learning atmosphere is looked as a place where children sit in a classroom in a certain way, the instruction is usually teacher led and teacher driven with a fixed set of learning outcomes. There is usually little space for children to be vocal and display their opinions or emotions.

Playful learning in schools aims to bring learning in school with principles of playfulness. It comes from a place where children in school take deep interest in what their teachers want them to do. In playful learning, children’s emotional and cognitive aspects are aligned. This creates opportunities for deep learning. It means children’s interests are taken into account, when designing learning experiences. Playful learning also advocates that children’s voices are heard and respected and they are actively engaged in the classroom. However, this doesn’t mean that anything goes. Just as there are rules in a game, there are boundaries within which the activity or the experiment takes place. Playful learning also sees a classroom as one with not chaos, but with active engagement where both students and teachers decide the direction of learning.

There are some principles which are central to implementing play based learning in schools.

1. Play supports learning: When children play, they are in the mind-space where they are happy and actively engaged.When they joyfully play with others, they develop empathy. When children play they develop the agency to learn and try out new things. Playful learning takes advantage of this state of children when they play. It is based on this premise that play actually supports learning.

2. Playful learning in school requires play with a purpose: Children are naturally curious and driven to learn, when made to realise a particular task and purpose, they will be focused to learn and grow. While on the face of it, play can look frivolous and purposeless and learning very serious. But when attached with a purpose, play can be strongly linked to learning. It is important for the teacher to identify the learning goals with the children. Once the children identify with these goals as meaningful, they are far more willing to put in the hard work into learning.

3. Understanding the paradox between play and school, that it adds to the complexity of teaching and learning: There are lots of distinctions between characteristics of play and how a school should be. It is important as educators to be aware of such paradoxes and to take a middle path instead which balances both the structure of learning and the fluidity of play. For e.g. a playful mindset would support the learning to be child-led, whereas the school model of learning says that activities should be teacher-led with little room for student choice. A middle ground would be guided play, where students can explore and direct their learning and educators can provide scaffolding and direction in service and learning goals.

4. Playful learning is universal and yet shaped by culture: Every culture in the world has play in some or the other form. However, play means different things to different people. It is important as a school and as a culture to arrive at one definition of playful learning and support that in the school culture.

5. Playful mindsets are central to playful learning: Mindsets are attitudes and beliefs that influence how people approach situations. In the case of playful learning, the mindset needed is that of being open to exploring the unknown, viewing school as a place to lead your learning and finding joy in learning. The good thing about mindsets is that they can be fostered and built over time. There is a need to inculcate this mindset over time in the school culture.

6. Supportive school cultures enable playful learning to thrive: The school culture should provide a sense of safety and trust to activate playful mindsets.

When implemented considering the principles above, play based learning can help unleash a school culture which can help children lead their own learning, be open to explore the unknown and most importantly help find joy in the classroom which is connected to overall well-being and cognitive learning.

REFERENCES

https://pz.harvard.edu/projects/pedagogy-of-play