Towards a Pedagogy of Play.pdf

Towards a Pedagogy of Play

A Project Zero Working Paper

The Pedagogy of Play Research Team

July 2016

Charlotte, Matthew, Else

, and a dozen other

middle school classmates are doing something

they have never done before: drawing the map of

the world on an orange. Working in pairs, children

consult atlases, globes, a large wall map, and

Google Earth as they outline the continents. For

twenty minutes there is laughter, confusion,

discussion and focused attention. Drawings completed,

the children peel their oranges and note the surprising

changes to their maps as the peels are flattened.

Reflecting on their experiences students write:

Charlotte: It is hard to represent the world as

flat. But using the orange makes

you[r] mind more awake and you

listen more and I am enjoying it.

Matthew: It’s messy, untidy, chaotic and weird.

Else: We were drawing and laughing

together. It was playful and I learned

a lot, too –the size of the South Pole,

the island of Bora Bora. Maybe we

can use an apple to explore the

interior of the earth?

Tue Rabenhøj, their teacher at the International School of Billund in Denmark,

embraces the school’s mission that children learn through play. For him, drawing

on an orange is a playful way to understand the relationship between our three-

dimensional earth and two-dimensional representations such as maps. Tue sees

the cultivation of his students’ playful dispositions as essential in order for them

to become collaborative, empowered, and creative global citizens.

Ben Mardell, Daniel Wilson, Jen Ryan, Katie Ertel, Mara Krechevsky and Megina Baker.

Children’s names have been changed throughout this paper

Playful learning experiences such as the one that Tue set up are effective yet

elusive practices in many schools. As educators look to develop students’

intellectual, social, emotional, and physical abilities, playful learning can be a

powerful ally. Charlotte, Matthew, and Else’s experiences reflect feelings of

delight, surprise, and agency in the process of developing knowledge, skills and

dispositions. Through this playful activity they are building disciplinary

knowledge, critical thinking skills, and collaborative capacities. They are

exploring, wondering, making connections, and laughing.

However, making room for playful learning in school can be difficult. Formidable

tensions exist between playful learning and the way teaching and learning are

currently structured in most schools. Educators often differ in how they value

playful learning practices and their understandings of the nature of play. For,

what is playful to one learner may not be experienced as playful by another. To

those who view play as a central pathway for learning, resources such as time,

space, and materials can seem in short supply. To those who see play as silly

and off-task, encouraging playful learning can run counter to educational policies

that emphasize efficient coverage of the curriculum. Though educators like Tue

bravely embrace playful learning, to convert such efforts into deep and lasting

change in and across schools requires more than good will and the commitment

of individual teachers.

We believe that a pedagogy of play—a systematic approach to the practice of

playful learning and teaching—is needed to bridge these tensions. Creating and

operationalizing such a pedagogy requires a school culture where playfulness is

celebrated, examined, made visible, and better understood as a powerful

pathway of learning. Indeed, bringing play into a central role in a school entails

creating a culture that values the core tenets of play: taking risks, making

mistakes, exploring new ideas, and experiencing joy.

The purpose of this paper is to share ideas that are emerging from a recent

research initiative called a Pedagogy of Play that explores how playful learning

can assume a central role in school. The study is being carried out by Project

Zero, in collaboration with the International School of Billund (ISB) in Denmark,

and the LEGO Foundation.

We begin our discussion by situating our work in the

fields of play and learning. Next, we share an emerging model called the

indicators of playful learning, which describe what playful learning looks like in

school. We then outline some of the challenges and puzzles of integrating playful

learning into school settings, and conclude by describing the promise of a

pedagogy of play for the future.

Project Zero is a research center based at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The

International School of Billund serves three through fourteen-year-olds. The LEGO Foundation is

both funding the project and an intellectual partner in the work.

Play, playfulness and learning through play

What exactly is meant by the terms play and playfulness? This question has long

been a subject of debate among scholars (Barnett & Owens, 2015; Eberle, 2014;

Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk, and Singer, 2009; Sutton-Smith, 1997). Depending

on the context, the terms carry different connotations. The word play alone can

conjure up a variety of images, feelings, and activities: to play an instrument, play

house, or play with a fish on the line. Play and playfulness can happen suddenly,

as when children (or adults) play with words, or over longer stretches of time, as

when dramatic play extends over hours or even days and weeks. Such

differences speak to what Sutton-Smith (1997) calls “the ambiguity of play.” Yet

wherever children are—indeed, wherever people are—there is play. It may be

celebrated, ignored, or suppressed, but even under extreme and harsh

conditions, play makes appearances (Eisen, 1988). As Schechner (1988)

explains,

[I]t’s wrong to think of play as the interruption of ordinary life. Consider instead

playing as the underlying, always there, continuum of experience…Ordinary life

is netted out of playing but play continually squeezes through even the smallest

holes…[W]ork and other activities constantly feed on the underlying ground of

playing, using the play mood for refreshment, unusual ways of turning things

around, insights, breaks, openings and especially looseness. (p. 16)

The numerous conceptions of play and playfulness share some generally agreed

upon features. Play is typically considered a pleasurable, spontaneous, non-goal

directed activity that can include anticipation, flow and surprise (Barnett &

Owens, 2015; Brown, 2009; Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Eberle, 2014; Gray, 2015;

Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009). Play is both objective and subjective, comprising

qualities of observable behavior as well as qualities of felt experience.

With regard to playfulness, researchers such as Barnett (1990) and

Lieberman (1977) suggest that in order to truly play, children need to

demonstrate a predisposition to perceive an activity as play. Christian

(2012) summarizes, “It is the child’s playfulness that renders an activity

play. As such, playfulness is recognized as the essence or spirit of play”

(p.19). Playfulness can be seen as the disposition to frame or reframe a

situation to include possibilities for enjoyment, exploration and choice.

These terms—play, playful, and even learning—are complex and complicated

constructs with ambiguous relationships between and among them. For

instance, not all play is playful (e.g., professional football). Nor does all that might

be considered playful (e.g., a conversation) resemble what would ordinarily be

called play. And although play often supports learning, some kinds of play

(described by King (1987) as “illicit play”) can also undermine and subvert

targeted learning (Sutton-Smith, 1988).

We prefer not to put boundaries around or adhere to strict definitions of these

terms. Instead, we find it helpful to frame our work around a constellation of

features that we call playful learning.

Foregrounding playful learning does not

mean that all learning has to be playful, or that every moment of playfulness

involves significant learning. What it does mean is that a close look at play and

playfulness reveals numerous emotional, social and cognitive features that can

powerfully abet learning in many, perhaps most, circumstances. Sometimes

these features help to make learning feel playful; sometimes they simply help the

learning to proceed in a more engaging and exploratory way, without feeling

playful as such (D. Perkins, personal communication, May 8, 2016). A large body

of literature speaks to the importance of learning through play; we briefly

summarize that literature next.

The benefits of learning through play

Play has long been recognized as a central way children learn (Dewey, 1944;

Froebel, 1887; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Huizinga, 1955; Piaget, 1971; Vygotsky,

1978). In playful learning, children try out ideas, test theories, experiment with

symbol systems, explore social relations, take risks, and reimagine the world.

Failure is an opportunity to try again. Vygotsky (1978) explains that “a child’s

greatest achievements are possible in play, achievements that will tomorrow

become her basic level of real action” (p.100). In playful learning, children are

engaged, relaxed, and challenged—states of mind highly conducive to learning

(LEGO Learning Institute, 2013). Children do not stop playing when they enter

grade school. While the nature of the play changes as children grow into

teenagers—there may be more complex games with rules, advanced physical

activity like team sports, programing with computers, and jam sessions with

instruments—the active engagement and meaning-making continues (Frost,

Wortham, & Reifel, 2012). Playful learning offers a pathway for intellectual,

social, emotional, and physical development.

Intellectual development

By fostering engagement and stimulating sense making, play allows learners to

build domain-related skills, content knowledge, and creative thinking. When

children play with blocks, draw, and engage in dramatic play, they count, classify,

and create and examine patterns (Ginsburg, Lee, & Boyd, 2008). Socio-dramatic

play involves telling stories, using rich vocabulary and practicing writing (Cooper,

2009; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Flewitt, Cremin, & Mardell, in press; Rosko &

Christie, 2015). Children who participate in play-oriented early childhood

classrooms show long-term academic gains (Marcon, 2002; Lillard & Else-Quest,

2006; Weiland & Yoshikawa, 2013). Studies such as these, as well as examples

A further illustration of the ambiguity of play, we note that many colleagues use the related term

“learning through play” to foreground the combination of learning, play and playfulness. While

some in the field see subtle but important differences between the two terms, in this paper we use

them interchangeably.

from primary and middle years classrooms, demonstrate powerful links between

play and the acquisition of academic skills, deepening content knowledge in the

domains of mathematics, literacy, science, and information and computer

technology (e.g., Cheng, 2011; Han, Moore, Vukelich, & Buell, 2010; Honeyford

& Boyd, 2015; Kangas, 2010; Kennewell & Morgan, 2006). Playful learning is

also a wellspring of creativity. Providing children the opportunity to ask “what if?”

helps them to imagine new possibilities, identify problems, and work to solve

them. They form new connections between people, ideas, materials and the

world. It is not surprising that children who are more playful are more creative

(Bateson & Martin, 2013).

Social development

When learning through play, children often engage with others and make sense

of relationships (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). They learn to read cues, listen, and

take another’s perspective— all key aspects to the development of empathy.

They build friendships based on trust and experience the satisfaction of creating

with others. As children enter primary school, peers take on increasing

importance, and play’s contribution to social learning continues. Students learn to

share ideas, express themselves, negotiate, and reach compromises (Mraz,

Porcelli, & Tyler, 2016). In play they learn to balance autonomy and

interdependence. In short, they learn the skills and dispositions of collaboration

(Project Zero & Reggio Children, 2001; Paley, 1990; Frost et al., 2012).

Emotional development

As children develop from preschool to middle school, playful learning contributes

to emotional growth. In early childhood, a central task is learning to self-

regulate—to defer gratification, control impulses, and direct one’s attention. In

playful learning, children develop the motivation and capacity to follow rules and

pay attention. Studies suggest a positive relationship between play and self-

regulation (e.g., Elias & Berk, 2002; Berk, Mann, & Ogan, 2006). Self-regulation

skills predict important outcomes such as peer acceptance, positive self worth,

and college completion (Frost et al., 2012; McClelland, Acock, Piccinin, Rhea, &

Stallings, 2013). Learning through play also contributes to children’s sense of

agency –the capacity and wherewithal to influence, manipulate, and shape one’s

world. This sense of agency enables children to recognize and act on

opportunities for change, and empowers them to make choices about their lives

(Clapp, Ross, Ryan, & Tishman, in press). When children play, they are in

charge; they set the agenda; they construct and deconstruct the rules. It is the

children who determine how (and when) to conform, when to deviate (or become

deviant), and when to lead (or follow). In sum, playful learning engages children

in exploring and making sense of the world, while developing self-regulation and

agency.

Physical development

Children’s physical health and well-being lay the groundwork for learning in other

spheres (Copple & Bredekamp, 2009; Dotson-Renta, 2016; Pica, 2004), and play

supports this development. At its core, much of play is physical, as children often

choose to play with and through their bodies (Wennerstrand, 1998). In such play,

a child develops strength, muscle control, coordination, reflexes, and gains a

sense of her own body’s abilities and limits (Frost, 2015; Manning, 1998).

Furthermore, play, whether climbing a tree or playing tag, is often about pushing

limits and trying new things—activities that that can motivate children to take

these risks.

Indicators of Playful Learning

As one of our first steps toward creating a pedagogy of play, we felt the need to

understand and have some clarity about what playful learning looks like. Working

closely with teachers at ISB and other playful learning thought partners, we are

developing a tool we call the Indicators of Playful Learning. Ultimately, we

envision that this tool may be used for educators to plan for, assess, and reflect

on playful teaching and learning.

The development of the indicators has been informed by the field (e.g., theories

and positions from relevant literature) as well as activities that we have been

engaging in. The opening vignette in this paper is just one of many documented

examples—along with teacher and student interviews, teacher surveys,

documentation of moments in school (e.g. video and photographs from

classrooms, transcripts of conversations among children and teachers, etc.), and

classroom observations—that supply data about what playful learning looks like

in classrooms. For example, during school visits to ISB, members of the Project

Zero research team used a draft of the indicators tool to focus classroom

observations, and then discussed these observations with teachers and students.

We have also solicited feedback from teacher and researcher colleagues in

workshops, meetings, and graduate level courses.

While the articulation of these indicators will continue to be an evolving process,

what is emerging is a model of playful learning with indicators in three

overlapping categories: delight, wonder, and choice. These categories aim to

describe the quality of learners’ experience as they build understanding,

knowledge, and skill. Because playful learning includes both subjective and

objective dimensions, the indicators represent psychological states as well as

observable behaviors. When all three categories are “in play,” represented by the

intersection of the circles, playful learning is most likely occurring.

For the playful learner, choice includes a sense of empowerment, autonomy,

ownership, spontaneity, and intrinsic motivation. Learners may experience these

feelings individually or as part of a group. Collectively making choices, and the

accompanying sense of being part of something bigger than oneself, can

enhance feelings of empowerment and ownership. To an observer, learners

demonstrating choice are setting goals, developing and sharing ideas, making

and changing rules, and negotiating challenges. They are also likely to be

choosing collaborators and roles, how long to work or play, and when to move

around.

In the orange activity, Charlotte, Matthew, and Else make choices. They choose

who they want to work with and how to research the earth (with an atlas or on

Google Earth). Having choice does not necessarily mean that there are no

external boundaries or constraints influencing an activity. The activity itself, the

goals of the activity, and the time allotment were determined by the teacher;

however, Charlotte, Matthew, and Else had many opportunities for making their

own decisions within these constraints. The reality for children (and often adults)

is that they rarely have complete choice. As we shall see, tensions between

children’s interests and adult learning goals can arise in schools. What is

perhaps most important about the experience of choice is that children feel

autonomy and ownership; that they feel they have opportunities to do what they

want to do.

Wonder entails the experience of curiosity, novelty, surprise, and challenge,

which can engage and fascinate the learner. To an observer, a sense of wonder

involves improvising or exploring, creating or inventing, pretending or imagining,

and taking risks or learning from trial and error. Wonder can emerge from the

ordinary to the extraordinary. A sense of wonder might be experienced through

play with materials, ideas, perspectives, music, symbols, words, languages,

stories, movement, or other modes of expression.

Being asked to draw the map of the world on an orange was certainly new to

Charlotte, Matthew, and Else. It seemed to elicit surprise and challenge.

Charlotte explained that it made her “mind more awake.” But as mentioned,

experiences of playfulness are subjective, and Matthew found the activity

“messy, untidy, chaotic and weird.” Although Charlotte and Else seemed to be

engaged by the activity, this was less true for Matthew.

Feelings of delight include excitement, joy, satisfaction, inspiration, anticipation,

pride, and belonging. Learners who feel delighted may smile, laugh, joke, or

perhaps be silly. They might sing or hum or dance, and they could feel a sense of

hygge, a Danish term that reflects sharing a cozy time with good friends. Their

attention may be focused. Delight may also be experienced through playful

competition, celebration, or engaging in an altruistic act.

The laughter Else mentions, Charlotte’s enjoyment, and Else’s anticipation of

future playful experiences (using the apple to explore the Earth’s interior) are all

indicators of delight. Teachers, too, can experience delight in their work. Tue

thought up the orange activity over his morning coffee, and, in anticipation,

“couldn’t wait to see what would happen.”

Suggesting that delight has its place in school does not mean that we do not take

learning seriously. We do. However, one should not confuse taking schooling

seriously with removing fun, joy, and pleasure from the process of learning.

Unfortunately, a sense of delight is often missing in schools.

Some caveats about the Indicators of Playful Learning model are worth noting.

Because some of the indicators are subjective in nature, it is important to reflect

on and talk with learners about their experiences. Each category contains

multiple indicators; some indicators show up across categories. For example,

“excitement” is listed as part of delight, but it could be related to feelings of

“surprise” in wonder. The indictors should not be seen as binary constructs. One

might experience wonder, delight, or choice to a stronger or lesser degree,

depending on the setting, the activity, and one’s personality. A child might feel

extremely delighted running outside on the playground, and a more subdued

sense of delight when listening to a story. These experiences of delight might be

qualitatively different from each other, but both are experiences of delight

nonetheless. When children experience choice, this does not necessarily mean

that teachers are uninvolved in the activity. In fact, some teacher moves can help

children navigate self-direction. Creating the conditions in which playful learning

flourishes is influenced not only by educators in the classroom, but also by larger

forces that shape the context.

Forces influencing learning through play in school

Taking inspiration from field analysis in the social sciences (Lewin, 1951), we find

it useful to think of school as a playing field in order to understand the conditions

that have an effect on learning through play. Schools are complicated systems,

comprised of multiple shifting and interdependent parts and interactions. Every

learning experience that takes place in a classroom, on a playground, during

afterschool time, or in the staff room is shaped by innumerable forces that can

either support or suppress playful learning.

Forces that influence the school playing field include the materials available in

the classroom, time, opportunities for learners to interact with each other, and

classroom and school norms. Are children encouraged to show curiosity, take risks,

express joy or other emotions, and make choices? The environment itself (light,

acoustics, layout, furnishings) affects the quality of activity and a playful disposition.

In our research with ISB, we are tracking and exploring these and other forces. Here

we highlight three systemic challenges: the fundamental tension between the

nature of play and the nature of school; the presence or absence of alignment

among adults about the role of play in learning; and the current educational

policy climate.

Paradoxes of play and school

Play is fluid, unpredictable, and at times scornful of authority, so it is not

surprising it can seem at odds with the goals and structures of school. The

spontaneous and non-utilitarian nature of play can make it an uneasy fit with the

social and cultural contrivance of school. As Kuschner (2012) argues, a series of

“unremitting contradictions” arises between play and school. In play, the players

lose their sense of time; schools are governed by timetables. Play can be

chaotic, messy, and loud; schools aspire to be places of order. In play, children

take risks (physical and psychological); schools are places where children should

be safe. Play is unpredictable and full of surprises; school has a clear agenda (M.

Karlsen, personal communication, May 26, 2016). Play emerges from children’s

desires and vitality—the child is in charge; at school, the adults set the agenda

often based on standards created by authorities distant from individual children

and their teachers. It is important not to gloss over these contradictions and find it

useful to frame them as “paradoxes”—two goods that are seemingly at odds—to

be recognized, studied, and constantly renegotiated. However, the paradoxes

can be more easily navigated when the adults in a school share a common vision

of the role of play in learning.

Alignment about play

Playful learning has a complex subjective nature—as we have noted, what is

playful learning for some is not playful learning for others. This is made all the

more complicated by the cultural and pedagogical beliefs and values of

educators and families. The ways in which any of us understand the nature of

playful learning, the adult’s role in supporting it, and its place in school are

heavily influenced by culture. Although children in all cultures play, such play

may be accepted, cultivated, or curtailed (Whitebread & Basilo, 2013). Cultures

differ widely in their beliefs about gender and play, the age one should stop

playing (if at all), and whether and how adults should participate in children’s

play. In an increasingly globalized world, where educators from different

backgrounds are working side by side, achieving alignment about play’s role in

school is an immense challenge. Yet, without a unified view of the role of play in

learning and what it looks like, educators may be working at cross-purposes and

sowing confusion. Such alignment is even harder to come by given the current

educational policy climate’s focus on standards.

The educational policy climate

Play is inherently resistant to the perhaps unintentional standardization resulting

from many education reform movements. Historically, numerous educators from

Plato to Dewey have extolled the virtues of play and playfulness in learning;

however, playful learning has rarely been a prevalent approach in primary or

secondary education. This is certainly the case in the last 150 years in Europe

and the US, with the dominance of the industrial model of school. Play has little

place in a factory. The exception is early childhood education. Yet even in early

childhood, the current educational policy climate has narrowed the space for play

in school. In two of the largest public school districts in the United States, New

York City and Los Angeles, an investigation found that kindergartners spent more

time preparing for tests than playing (Miller & Almon, 2009). Another US study

(Bassok, Latham, & Rorem, 2016) tracked kindergarten practices from 1998 to

2006, the eight-year period when the standards movement came to the fore. The

research found a clear move towards direct instruction, a focus on curriculum

involving literacy and numeracy and a decrease in child-initiated activities.

Throughout the world, desks have replaced dollhouses and blocks, and direct

instruction has replaced child-directed activities in early childhood classrooms

(LEGO Learning Institute, 2013).

In the older years, the Programme for International Student Assessment’s (PISA)

‘league tables’ (aimed at comparing and rating schools and countries by way of

test scores) have resulted in a proliferation of high stakes tests and externally

determined standards. Many countries have responded with highly prescriptive

curricula that cater to test results, consequently diminishing space for playful

learning in schools (Ball, 2013; Moss, 2009; Wohlwend & Peppler, 2015;

Sahlberg, 2011). In elementary and middle schools, students have less to time

explore, experiment, inquire, and take risks during formal learning times. With

pressures to cover mandated curricula, teachers feel obliged to cut engaging

activities such as debates and group projects. Even in domains where students

have historically engaged in inquiry, such as the arts, social studies, and the

sciences, standards have forced teachers to focus on convergent thinking and

right answers. Rather than becoming critical and creative thinkers and

communicators, an important concern is that children are becoming passive

spectators skilled at following directions.

The Promise of a Pedagogy of Play

We believe a pedagogy of play—a systematic approach to the practice and study

of playful learning and teaching in school—will help to build a shared language

and understanding of how to support learning through play. We are in the

process of articulating key structures and practices which we hope can help fulfill

the potential of learning through play in schools. Hope and inspiration for a

pedagogy of play come from the International School of Billund (ISB) and other

pockets around the world where administrators and teachers are valuing,

supporting, and making visible learning through play.

With the ISB educators, we are developing a research approach we are calling

“playful participatory research.” The approach builds on action research models

in which educators collaboratively and critically identify questions, and develop

and document emerging hypotheses.

The opening vignette illustrates one

teacher’s efforts to support children’s learning through play and to create the

conditions for delight, choice, and wonder.

A pedagogy of play can help educators in a school to align practices so they are

all rowing in the same direction based on a shared understanding of when and

how play can support learning. A pedagogy of play also offers the possibility to

reframe Kuschner’s “contradictions” as paradoxes to acknowledge, examine, and

perhaps even embrace. As the Danish physicist Neils Bohr would say, How

wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making

progress. The promise of such a pedagogy is that it will enable self-directed

learning to thrive within the constraints of a schedule, honor children’s interests

and passions within a context of targeted learning goals and standards-based

curriculum, and provide schools with structures that encourage healthy risk-

taking while keeping children safe.

Charlotte, Matthew, and Else are growing up in an increasingly interconnected

and complex world. They and their contemporaries will be directly confronted by

the challenges of mass migration, climate change, and the problems and

possibilities that accompany technological innovations. As their teacher Tue

For more information on our research methods and collaboration with ISB, see our companion

paper, Playful Participatory Research, http://pz.harvard.edu/resources/playful-participatory-

research.

realizes, the cultivation of playful dispositions will enable them to be creative and

collaborative contributors to the world’s challenges. These playful dispositions

are needed not just in Tue’s school, but around the world. A pedagogy of play will

help us look to the future by providing a framework, tools, and pictures of practice

to better understand, document, and support playful learning for all children.

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Acknowledgements

Our thanks to Bo Stjerne Thomsen, Camilla Fog, David Kuschner, Debbie McCoy,

Matt Karlsen, Per Havgaard, Rollie Adams, Scott Eberle, Susan MacKay, and

Tiziana Filippini for comments on previous drafts of this paper.

And our appreciation to our colleagues at the LEGO Foundation for laying the

intellectual groundwork for this project, initiating of the idea for a Pedagogy of

Play, and inviting us to collaborate in this endeavor.