The scale of technological changes coming will significantly impact how we live, and thrive, in the future. And it’s reshaping how we prepare children for success in this new future. As educators, it will be important for us to transition from acquisition of knowledge, to honing a broader set of The unrealized skills, to ultimately building confidence in learning itself. Highly engaging, potential of learning hands-on, playful learning is one of through play at school the ways that educators can help children achieve this goal. Building confidence through development of holistic skills
The need for learning educational researchers have pointed out that this recalibration through play is needless, as experts have established that “learning through Increased focus on measuring results play supports the development of The LEGO Foundation recently early literacy and numeracy skills in released the results of a five-year an integrated approach, while also research initiative that looked at cultivating children’s social, emotional, learning through play as a way of physical, and creative skills” (Marbina, enhancing educational curricula. Church & Tayler, 2011). The study found that in the past few decades, educators around the world Can learning through play be have been striving to teach STEAM effective for learners of all ages? subjects that will be increasingly Because “play” is so strongly important as the pace of innovation associated with preschool, very little grows and the job market evolves. research has been done to examine Emphasis on the content of STEAM the benefits of learning through play subjects has led to an increased in primary school. In conducting use of didactic methods and more this five-year initiative, the LEGO “Learning through play focus on quantifiable academic Foundation found that there was little supports the development achievements. But focusing exclusively to no mention of “play” or “play-based of early literacy and on what is quantifiable means learning” for children beyond eight numeracy skills in an educators have had less time to years old. The key question became, integrated approach, while promote the development of holistic what is the role of learning through also cultivating children’s skills—social, emotional, physical and play in helping prepare primary social, emotional, physical, creative skills—that are essential for students for future education and creative skills” creating lifelong learners. and careers? – Marbina, Church & Tayler, 2011 Positive impact of learning through play Learning through play is well Defining learning established as a method for through play developing holistic skills in the early learning years. Despite the evidence, Tension between “play” and “learn” many educators have minimized the Play and learning are often seen opportunities for playful learning in as dichotomous concepts—play is favor of didactic approaches. Some something fun that young children
Learning Through Play engage in, while learning is a more 2 Socially interactive – when guiding learners with targeted, serious task that older children learners are involved in working encouraging questions, hints engage in. This is sometimes why together in groups, and are and modeling. educators turn to didactic methods using strategies that have been when they’re under pressure to designed to maximize the benefit 5 Joyful – when learners are produce standardized results on of cooperative learning. When curious, enjoy learning new cognitive skill tests. learning occurs in new and things and overcome challenges different settings and contexts, or through positive peer and teacher While learning through play might in a group around an activity or interactions. This is characterized lead one to think of pure “free play,” experiment, it can expand social by interest and motivation, by the evidence suggests that learning networks and dissolve barriers having and making choices, through play at school is “combining between individuals and groups experiencing learning in a range playful child-directed activity with that are sometimes created in of settings, personally relating to teacher or adult supported or guided traditional classroom settings. the content of their learning, and learning objectives” (Weisberg, feeling able and confident about Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2013). This 3 Actively engaging – when their learning. includes voluntary play, guided play, learners have choices—big or construction play, collaborative play, small—to make about the content 5 skills for holistic child development learning through games, physical or processes involved in their Learning through play helps children play and digital play, among others. learning. Active engagement develop a deeper understanding occurs when learners are deeply and broader set of skills that they will 5 essential characteristics of immersed, rely on and support need to succeed in future education learning through play other learners, and teachers and careers. The LEGO Foundation Previously, the LEGO Foundation, guide learners to formulate has defined this broad range of skills in partnership with experts from understandings and develop to encompass: four universities, worked to establish new skills through prompting the five characteristics that define and questioning rather than 1 Cognitive skills – being able to learning through play. These include solely through explicit instruction. concentrate, problem-solve and learning that is: Active engagement consists of think flexibly by learning to tackle the three dimensions: feelings complex tasks and build effective 1 Meaningful – when learners about learning (affective), actions strategies to identify solutions. can relate new experiences towards learning (behavioral) to something already known, and thinking/processing within 2 Emotional skills – being able thereby making connections the learning context (cognitive). to understand, manage and between things that are relevant Engaged learners demonstrate express emotions by building self- to them. Integrated approaches motivation and commitment awareness and handling impulses, are meaningful when they are towards their learning, often as well as staying motivated and designed to include relevant and extending themselves beyond confident in the face of difficulties. engaging tasks, inquiry questions, set goals and expectations. and problems or projects that 3 Physical skills – being physically are self-sustaining and thought- 4 Iterative – when learners have active, understanding movement provoking, compelling learners the opportunity to explore and and space through practicing to find out more. Integrated investigate new concepts—to sensory-motor skills, developing pedagogies are designed try, and fail, and try again. When spatial understanding, and to include processes that learners share their ideas with nurturing an active and enhance meaning, ask about each other and revise and healthy body. past experiences and build recalibrate their thinking based on scaffolding—guiding learners testing, trying out possibilities and 4 Social skills – being able to from what is known to what revising hypotheses. Teachers collaborate, communicate and is unknown. encourage iteration through understand other people’s
Learning Through Play perspectives through sharing to which degree they supported The Victorian Early Years Learning ideas, negotiating rules and student outcomes as a combination and Development Framework, in building empathy. of skills and knowledge. which a triple helix represents teacher-directed, teacher-guided 5 Creative skills – being able The results show that these and child-directed learning, further to come up with ideas and integrated pedagogies share reinforces the importance of express and transform them into many of the same characteristics blending techniques, noting that all reality by creating associations, of learning through play. The three strands of the helix are stronger symbolizing and representing evidence concludes that learning when they work together. ideas, and providing meaningful through play is an integrated experiences for others. pedagogy, which can be seen as Evidence shows that the benefits highly effective in building a breadth of learner agency include making of skills alongside academic content, authentic and genuine choices Fostering learning at the same time as having high about what and how to learn, asking student engagement. Students enjoy questions and offering opinions, through play studying while benefiting from both freedom to seek resources and skills and knowledge. advice, and allowing time for making The LEGO Foundation initiative and overcoming “false starts.” evaluated a total of more than 50 The importance of learner agency educational approaches that were Learning through play, like the associated with effective ways of integrated pedagogies included learning, and decided on eight in the LEGO Foundation study, pedagogies, collectively referred elevate learner agency by blending to as “integrated” because they teacher-directed, teacher-guided combine child-directed, teacher- and child-directed learning, ultimately guided and teacher-directed learning. encouraging children and teachers These integrated pedagogies, to be actively engaged in the including Active Learning, learning process together. Cooperative and Collaborative Play-based learning and Learning, Experiential Learning, • Teacher-directed learning – approaches such as inquiry- Guided Discovery Learning, Inquiry- providing initial framing and explicit Based Learning, Problem-Based based learning, active and instruction when needed Learning, Project-Based Learning experiential learning are
and Montessori education, were founded on the same • Teacher-guided learning – selected because they are derived providing scaffolded learning at learning theories. Central from the same constructivist appropriate points to these theories is the idea learning theories. These integrated pedagogies were then reviewed in that educators and learners • Child-directed learning – making terms of empirical evidence across work together in partnership choices about the content and multiple interventions to identify to co-construct knowledge. process of learning Learning environments are intentionally designed to Adult-led learning maximize opportunities
Guided play and learning to foster creativity, social interaction, experimentation Child-directed learning and a love of learning.
Fig 1 – Integrated teaching and learning approaches (Reproduced from the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework, Department of Education and Training, 2016, p. 15)
Learning Through Play Looking to the future • Evaluation tools, guidelines and rubrics that are made visible and Allowing for depth over breadth explained to or even developed Learning through play also affords with learners children the time and space they need to fully explore STEAM • Formative assessments during topics. The LEGO Foundation study project design and development indicates that in order to achieve in the form of feedback the best possible outcomes, children would benefit from learning Directions for future research between and across disciplines, and The LEGO Foundation study connecting concepts and content establishes a meaningful framework with their real-world applications. In for playful learning characteristics order to do this, it’s important to and skills that have broad validity If emotional, social, creative actively engage learners, allow them and application to primary school and physical skills are of to work together, and learn by doing. education. The study also presents a number of opportunities for further equal value to cognitive Embracing new types research, including new metrics to skills, they must feature of assessments evaluate the impact of non-cognitive prominently in programming Given that the benefit of learning skills, understanding the steps for and assessment. through play, like integrated embarking on and scaling up more pedagogies, encourages the play-based or integrated pedagogies, development of holistic skills, it’s as well as how and where digital important that measurement follow technology is used to support suit. Currently, however, measurement effective implementation. tends to skew towards cognitive results. Moving forward, the LEGO As the pace of technological Foundation study shows that learning changes accelerates, so will the through play assessments would need to transition from acquisition benefit from a multidimensional of knowledge, to honing a broader approach that factors cognitive and set of skills, to building confidence non-cognitive skills, with an emphasis in learning itself. Highly engaging, on how learners are applying their hands-on, playful learning is one of knowledge in a range of different the most important ways in which contexts. There are three different educators can not only prepare dimensions of assessment that students for the future, but also educators are encouraged to ensure that they truly thrive. start exploring:
• Intellectually ambitious performance assessments
To read the full paper, and see the full list of resources analyzed for this initiative, visit LEGOfoundation.com/schoolslearnthroughplay
Marbina, L., Church, A., & Tayler, C. (2011). Victorian early years learning and development framework: Evidence paper: Practice principle 6: Integrated teaching and learning approaches. Retrieved from State of Victoria, Department of Education and Training website at: https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/childhood/providers/edcare/eviintegteac.pdf Weisberg, D. S., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Golinkoff, R. M. (2013). Guided play: Where curricular goals meet a playful pedagogy. Mind, Brain, and Education, 7, 104–112. https://doi.org/10.1111/mbe.12015 LEGO and the LEGO logo are trademarks and/or copyrights of the LEGO Group. ©2020 The LEGO Group. All rights reserved.
Learning Through Play