Learning to Play, Playing to Learn
We need to bring learning at all levels closer to play and that starts by acknowleding the individual needs of each learner
Humans were born to play. We play because fundamentally, in our essence, we yearn to explore and relish a challenge. All it takes to see this instinct at play, is watching little children go about their daily lives. All it takes to lose this instinct is 12 or so years of traditional schooling.
To our detriment, modern society has successfully divorced play and learning in our psyche. We’ve stopped being able to learn through play and instead learn through rote. Yet it is precisely through solidifying that connection between learning and play that we can forge forward a brighter future for learning.
Dr. Bo Stjerne Thomsen is on a mission to do just that. As the Chair of Learning through Play at the LEGO Foundation, Bo has worked with stakeholders across philanthropy, academia and the corporate world to create a shared agenda around learning through play.
I sat down with Bo recently to learn more about how he thinks we can bring play and learning back to the same part of the school day.
How do you think about the distinction between learning & play?
Traditionally, and especially as adults, we’ve come to think of play as a frivolous activity that is done with no end goal. As such, it becomes very hard to imagine a reality where learning and play co-exist let alone learning through play itself.
Children are very different of course. They go out into the world and play because they are curious about things they don’t know. They want to immerse themselves into uncertainty and learning as much as possible.
We take inspiration from that. Our approach to learning through play has been guided by the most updated science and includes 5 key components:
Learning should be active and not passive
It should be iterative and not repetitive
It should be meaningful to the learner
It should be socially interactive not individually competitive
It should be enjoyable
This is somewhat removed from how as a society we think about learning because most of our education systems are based on old theories of education that privilege instructionism. Instead of being encouraged to embrace uncertainty, we get presented with the solutions and are asked to didactically learn them.
As you can see, learning through play assumes different goals for the education system. We want to move away from rote learning to learning the skills that matter. The most effective way to create change in education is by starting with the end in mind.
What is the role of assessment in learning through play?
Assessment is one of the main levers within education that we need to redesign. We are naturally guided by the outcomes we are trying to achieve. At present, the incentive systems are not aligned.
Traditional instructionist pedagogy works well if the goal is short-term memorization. It would appear that this is what we have been optimising our education systems around.
To create real change, we must start by adapting the outcomes we are looking for. We argue that you need much more adaptive and integrated assessment. We must broaden the ecology of where learning truly happens and measure outcomes outside the classroom.
That is why I believe that portfolio and project based assessment are key to unlocking learning through play. They allow us to truly display what each student is good at.
Assessment can be fun, while still being rigorous. It should be something that is connected to the context of the individual learner and something they are excited about engaging with: like playing a game and testing different ideas.
How do you scale learning through play at a systems level?
It is difficult to fit play-based assessment in a linear education system. Fortunately, that is not how the world works anymore. Play-based assessment assumes there will be multiple paths and careers in life for most people. It recognizes the reality that we are all multidimensional.
As such, play-based assessment is trying to create a broader more holistic assessment of the individual which can then be scaled at a systems level. It will include both quantitative and qualitative assessment.
To achieve this, we need wider acceptance of modern constructivist pedagogies - which is just starting to happen.
What does the rise of generative-AI allow us to do (that we couldn’t before) that is helpful for a pedagogy of play?
I believe it will create a fundamental shift in how we learn. It will not be without its challenges, but I’ve rarely seen this much excitement from all directions about how generative AI can really transform learning.
It is imperative that we encourage all stakeholders to start by playing with it more. We should encourage them to test the opportunities it creates and be critical of the underlying data.
We are already seeing a lot of excitement which is encouraging, but the real test will be whether the rise of AI will only increase teaching efficacy, or whether it will transform our pedagogies so learning becomes more engaging for the students.
I’m hopeful it empowers teachers to provide their students with the right scaffolding to really drive their own learning and generate their own artefacts.
There are a lot reasons to be optimistic about the future of learning. In 5 years from now, it will be a lot more playful, flexible and fluid. It will be connected to our real-life interests and strengtsh.
A special thanks to Bo for making the time for this interview and sharing this thoughts with us on learning through play and welcome to the over 150 new subscribers that have joined since the last issue. Please do reach out if you have any thoughts or comments and don’t forget to share with your friends.
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