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Create a playful name & logo for your study group. Be bold! Be creative!. Make it visible on your Padlet!
Due Date: 11 November 2019

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How can playful learning develop thinking skills?

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How can playful learning develop thinking skills?

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Playful learning is when children explore, enjoy and learn at the same time. They are not necessarily aware that they are learning.

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Playful learning is when children explore, enjoy and learn at the same time. They are not necessarily aware that they are learning.

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Question- What is playful thinking skills?
How can play help in developing thinking skills?
How can students reflect through playful learning? (This is my final question of research)

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There is a difference between play and playful. Does playful just mean fun?

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There is a difference between play and playful. Does playful just mean fun?

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If grade 3 students were to create their own learning games, would this enhance their musical understanding and creativity? Could they create games and then reflect on the effectiveness of these as a method of learning? How could this idea be transformed into a research question?
For example: if the students know that the learning objective is to recognise the material of a percussion instrument from its sound, they could invent games to test each other and then reflect on the efficacy.
If the objective is to understand how a percussion ensemble can be created using different rhythmic patterns played by instruments of different materials, they could invent a game using SketchaSong on iPads.
Could this work or is it far too complicated?

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It's about students  engagement ,  enjoyment and skill development. 

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It's about students  engagement ,  enjoyment and skill development. 

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Question - How can playful thinking skill improve child's language skill?

How can students improve their creative thinking skills through play?

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The scientific case for learning through play

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Play is how children thrive. In our paper ‘Learning Through Play: a review of the evidence’ we look at the science behind the power of play - showing how it helps children pick up the skills to take on the 21st century

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Using Playful Learning Strategies

Sometimes we play hard and competitively.
Sometimes we play casually and cooperatively.

Regardless of the amount of exertion made in play we are still learning! Yet this freedom of effort is typically not allowed in tradition al learning environments. Students are expected to focus and exert a maximum amount of effort to be successful. Games allow students to control their exertion while still achieving the same learning goals.

The Freedom to Experiment

Experimentation is something the classroom does not always encourage. Learning lessons and acquiring knowledge typically manifests through repetition and rote practice, and ends up being assessed through the same formula. Even if the lesson is fun, this lack of student centered learning is an antiquated approach to teaching and can lead to a less engaged classroom.

Games force players to make connections and solve problems in order to succeed. When applied to the classroom, games allow students to take control of their learning through experimentation. Play allows students to forge stronger connections between the learning material and their unique game experiences, helping them retain knowledge far beyond the boundaries of the classroom.

What Others Are Saying About Game-Based Learning

"If it's true that of teens in the U.S. are playing digital games, then the focus on how games can fit into the shifting education system becomes that much more important."- 97 percent MindShift

"And while educational games aren't new, Minecraft has some unique advantages that could usher in a new direction in education. In the future, students across the world may spend their class time punching trees."- PBS Idea Channel

"What if, instead of seeing school the way we've known it, we saw it for what our children dreamed it might be : a big, delicious video game?"- The New York Times

Hear It From the Experts

"It turns out video games are just a Trojan horse for studying interest-driven learning. Games are very well designed for learning, but to also capture interest-to be captivating, motivating."- Constance Steinkuehler, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"While games are by no means a 'silver bullet' to the current challenges that roil America's schools...our educational institutions would be wise to more robustly leverage the ubiquitous digital media...that currently pervade children's lives."- Michael Levine, Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop

Winning Parents Over

"Every teacher who has attempted to integrate technology into the classroom knows that getting parents on board can sometimes be a challenge."- Jennifer Carey, Ransom Everglades School, FL

More Research on Game-Based Learning
The Education Arcade, MIT The Games for Learning Institute, NYU Games+Learning+Society Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison
The Playful Learning Team

Playful Learning is a project of the Learning Games Network, an award-winning non-profit producer of games for learning. Grounded in a decade of game-based learning research at the MIT Education Arcade and the Games+Learning+Society Center, Learning Games Network was founded in 2008 and is now based in Cambridge, MA and Madison, WI. For more about LGN, visit their website here!

Supporters of Playful Learning

Playful Learning is powered by the Games and Learning Alliance. Our work would not be possible without the support of the NewSchools Venture Fund and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as our partners at Thinkfinity, Google Teachers, EdModo, GameDesk and Engrade.

Taken from the Playful Learning Organization (http://beta.playfullearning.com/about)

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What is Playful Learning? - UWWPlayfulLearningSummit

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Using Playful Learning Strategies Sometimes we play hard and competitively. Sometimes we play casually and cooperatively. Regardless of the amount of exertion made in play we are still learning! Yet this freedom of effort is typically not allowed in tradition al learning environments.

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We discussed how we could hone our research questions even more by being more specific.
We could pick
*1/2/3 students and focus on them
* one group of learners
* one area of the curriculum
* one kind of play

Reema- looking at documenting specific students playfully reflecting during maths.
Sushmita- looking at documenting a group of students working on a creative task together.
Louisa- possibly looking at a student who cannot stop asking questions or stop talking
Tip: Group could share their 5-10 minutes video and discuss using Connect-Extend –Challenge at their next meeting
Group will continue working on coming up with a group’s name to support your beautiful Logo!

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Jack'n Jill's Thinking Skills
Why this name? Lots of reasons.
PLINK is a fun word and creative. It fuses Play and Think. It is an onomatopoeia and links both language and music. It makes me think of counters too so here is a link with maths.
Jack'n Jill is inescapably linked to learning through play in early years. It incorporates many fundamentals:  rhyme, rhythm, melody, cause and effect, and physics (what happens when you fall at the top of a hill)... None of these elements is explicitly taught but learners learn instinctively. "Jack'n Jill's Thinking Skills" links the idea of developing thinking skills through play.

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Why playful thinking skills are important for students?

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Why playful thinking skills are important for students?

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Task - Choose any one or two puppets   create a story  .
Learning objective - focus on thinking  skill and speaking skill.

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Grade 2K

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Task

1. Listen to motivational radio jockey stories on YouTube.

2. Present any story of ones choice in their own words like a radio jockey.

Leaning engagement

1.  Focus on listening, communication and thinking skills.

2. Focus on thinking skill because they have to think, create and present their own story

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1 An inner representing nouns.
The leader of this group is Arsh. When he names a pronoun, the inner circle group will take one step front.
2. An outer circle representing nouns.
The leader of this group is Ditya. When she names a noun, the outer circle group will take two steps back.
On completion of this activity students will think and create words on nouns and pronouns of their choice  using wooden blocks ans sand.
Reflection-
Students enjoyed the session and through the activity were engaged in understanding how nouns and pronouns help in acquiring  language skill.
Students took their own time using their thinking skills and created the  words on their own and happily completed the activity.
Key concepts - form and function
Grade 2K  students engaged in language  activity.
Activity link is given below-

https://youtu.be/e3tDBlg0Z54

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https://www.brighthorizons.com/family-resources/developing-critical-thinking-skills-in-children

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Unfortunately this is the result rather than the process. I have just remembered where the process videos are - on an iPad. To be uploaded later.

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Unfortunately this is the result rather than the process. I have just remembered where the process videos are - on an iPad. To be uploaded later.

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Interconnected circle

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The inquiry question was: The objective was for them to analyse and evaluate what is a quadrilateral.

What do think are quadrilaterals?

How many sides and edges would a quadrilateral have?

Will it be a 3 dimensional or a 2 dimensional shape?
Alishan- At first started making a 3 dimensional shape with the help of the jodo straws. He made a cube. Then he said that the cube is a quadrilateral.

Ali – He was not convinced with Alishan and he said that a quadrilateral is a 2 dimensional shape. He said that a square and a rectangle could be a quadrilateral.

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Shasta and Mehwish were figuring out :

-       Whether triangles are quadrilaterals

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-       Whether quadrilaterals can be made up of curved sides.

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Akshith and Krishiv were making nets of 3D shapes.They were trying their best to figure out how to stick the edges so that shape looks like the one intended. There were a few hickups and failures finally Akshith could manage to do it.

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Akshith and Krishiv were making nets of 3D shapes.They were trying their best to figure out how to stick the edges so that shape looks like the one intended. There were a few hickups and failures finally Akshith could manage to do it.

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Grade 1 students learning language, coordination, song, rhythm etc. through dance.

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Grade 1 students learning language, coordination, song, rhythm etc. through dance.

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Two Grade 3 students freely playing (in both senses of the word here) on the keyboard.

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Ziyan and Sourish playing and creating (online-video-cutter.com)

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Sourish and Ziyan explain in an interview.

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Research Questions:
1:How can playful thinking skill improve child's language skill?

2:How can students improve their creative thinking skills through play?

3:Why playful thinking skills are important for students?