Playful Participatory Research

<< PPR is a type of “practitioner inquiry” or “teacher research”—research that is done by educators. This is research that involves you collecting data or documentation about your learning community, making sense of and analyzing what you collect, and applying what you learn to better understand a topic or idea. Your data will be your documentation of your classroom, your school, and your learners >> 

<< Research about PPR has shown that it can help educators to take risks and explore new possibilities in their teaching, and that exploring questions playfully helps incorporate more playful learning into classrooms and schools. >>

PPR is a cycle: (1) Wonder, (2) Plan, (3) Play, (4) Reflect, (5) Share.

(from Pedagogy of Play at Project Zero, Harvard University)

To read more:

• Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. L. (2009). Inquiry as stance: Practitioner research in the next generation. Teachers College Press.

• Perry, G., Henderson, B., & Meier, D. R. (Eds.). (2012). Our Inquiry, Our Practice: Undertaking, Supporting, and Learning from Early Childhood Teacher Research(ers). National Association for the Education of Young Children. 

• Baker, M., and Salas Davila, G. (2018). “Inquiry is play: Playful Participatory Research (Voices).” Young Children, 73(5), accessed here.  

• Baker, M & Ryan, J. (2021) Playful provocations and playful mindsets: Teacher learning and identity shifts through playful participatory research. International Journal of Play, DOI: 10.1080/21594937.2021.1878770

• Krechevsky, M., Mardell, B., Rivard, M, and Wilson, D.G. (2013). Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.