I am so glad I joined this Collegial Research Group! Being that I was new to Scarsdale this year, it was a great way to meet and get to know new faces around the district. It was also both enriching and fulfilling to be part of a collaborative group that values learning and growing in our profession.
I feel so fortunate that I was able to take this course with my co-teacher, Dahlia. In addition to meeting with the larger group, together we were able to debrief after sessions, reflect on our practices, and plan and implement ideas and next steps in our classroom on a more personalized level. We loved having the opportunity to explore and discuss concepts of playful learning and consulting with Yvonne Lui.
In our sessions with Yvonne, we not only discussed important topics surrounding playful learning, but we actually immersed ourselves in the practice as well. These sessions were very impactful as it allowed us to “be the students” at times and really experience what playful learning feels like. We had opportunities to work collaboratively with partners or group members and explore a variety of methods that demonstrate our learning. These sessions really helped shape my idea of what playful learning is.
Prior to taking this course, my concept of playful learning was more literal than anything else. More or less, I pictured young learners playing with manipulatives/objects/toys in their hands and using their creativity and imagination. I believed that the conversations that surrounded this play would naturally nurture learning and enhance knowledge.
What I was able to learn throughout this course was that my ideas were not entirely wrong, but also that the concept of playful learning was not quite that limited. Yvonne introduced several ideas outlined in the Pedagogy of Play to our group, and our work surrounding these ideas allowed us to understand how wide the range of playful learning really is. As a group we discussed its importance, identified barriers or hurdles, and brainstormed ideas for incorporating playful learning in our classroom. Together we discovered simple and subtle ways to do so without interrupting our teaching.
What we were able to see in real time and take away from our observations in each other's classrooms was that playful learning notably enhanced our students’ learning and engagement! It was really so valuable to be able to observe this practice in action. Often when we are teaching in our own classrooms we are unable to catch every conversation and interaction between our students, however, being an observer allowed us to catch more of these moments, which we then were able to reflect on and discuss as a group.
By identifying what playful learning looks like, sounds like, and feels like, our group was able to create our own definition of the term as it matched our experience. I truly feel as though we learned so much from each other and from our students and I would love the opportunity to continue to dive deeper into this research.