Keywords
- Teacher Involvement
- Shared Thinking
- Unquestioned Assumption
- Related Study Research
- Research Effective Pedagogy
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Introduction
Understandings about learning in play-based early years’ education contexts (for children aged from 6 weeks to 8 years) have become increasingly diverse and complex in recent years. Many early years’ learning and curriculum frameworks developed in countries around the world over the last decade or so reflect a shift away from developmentally appropriate practice that closely linked children’s learning capacities to their developmental “stage” and advocated child-centered approaches that primarily involved teachers responding to children’s self-initiated interests and self-directed play. Especially in predominantly European-heritage countries, play is still considered essential to children’s learning. However, conceptualizations of play, and views about the extent to which, and ways in which, teachers should engage in children’s play vary widely. The following discussion identifies some new understandings about learning in play-based contexts and flags some associated debates.
Very Young Children Actively Engage in Learning in Play-Based Contexts
A growing body of contemporary research in naturalistic contexts shows that babies and toddlers (aged up to 2 years) actively participate in early years’ settings in much more sophisticated ways than was often previously realized. Much of this research (e.g., Berthelsen et al. 2009) illustrates the babies’ and toddlers’ interest in developing relationships with peers and adults and the wide range of strategies they use to do so. Their learning is relational in that it occurs within relationships. Very young children, like their older counterparts, learn by actively participating in their social and cultural worlds (Berthelsen et al. 2009). These worlds provide many opportunities for babies and toddlers, in their day-to-day lives, to encounter, engage with, and learn about aspects of literacy, mathematics, and science and about other social, cultural, and physical phenomena that typically fall within the scope of curricula.
Curriculum and learning frameworks are increasingly inclusive of babies and toddlers. They raise a range of issues about very young children’s learning (as opposed to the more traditional focus on their development) in early years’ settings that require further investigation. Research in naturalistic settings also highlights babies’ and toddlers’ capacities to take the initiative, to engage purposefully in learning, and to sustain intense concentration for long periods. Increasing recognition of the sophistication of babies’ and toddlers’ learning has generated debate about terminology, such as the term “infant education and care.” The importance of positive and caring relationships for babies’ and toddlers’ learning is not disputed. Rather, debate focuses on whether the term education adequately reflects and encompasses caring relationships. Conversely, does the stand-alone use of the term “care” do justice to the complexity of babies’ and toddlers’ learning and sufficiently convey educators’ responsibilities for fostering that learning in play-based contexts?
The Importance of Teacher Involvement in Play-Based Learning
Powerful evidence of the importance of active teacher involvement in children’s play-based learning has been provided by the influential UK study, the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) (1997–2003), and later extended to the Effective Pre-School and Primary Education 3–11 (EPPE 3–11) Project (1997–2008) (http://eppe.ioe.ac.uk/) and the related study Researching Effective Pedagogy in the Early Years (1997–2003) (https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/RR356.pdf). These studies generated the term “sustained shared thinking,” which refers to at least two people working together in ways that require them to draw on their intellectual resources – for example, to solve problems, clarify concepts, evaluate activities, and extend narratives. Each person engages with the thinking of the other participants to co-construct new understandings. Crucially, all participants are involved in extending thinking and developing new understandings (Siraj-Blatchford 2009). These landmark studies have prompted many subsequent rich accounts of sustained shared thinking in early years’ settings that illustrate joint involvement of children and adults and children and their peers in child- and adult-initiated play-based learning.
Drawing on the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, Fleer (2010) provides another, complementary, way of theorizing the pedagogical role of play in concept formation. She proposes the term conceptual play to refer to the play that assists children to develop scientific or other academic concepts. Fleer suggests that the teacher’s role is to analyze children’s play and to discern key moments in the development of their understandings. The teacher can then seize the opportunity to frame the play activity conceptually in ways that encourage children to think about the concept.
Fleer (2010) made the point that simply providing opportunities for children to play with a range of interesting materials and objects is unlikely to lead to scientific learning. In illustration, she described a group of preschool children playing with colored water and plastic tubes, funnels, containers, and bottles with pump dispensers. The teacher anticipated that playing with these materials and objects would enable the children to develop scientific understandings (e.g., about the density of substances and how they mix). The children, however, developed a play script that involved making medicine to treat a “Humpty Dumpty” soft toy that repeatedly fell from a wall. While they used materials and objects provided by the teacher, their play did not lead to conceptual learning. The teacher did not participate in the children’s play and was not concerned about what some would see as a lost opportunity for learning. Rather, she valued their imaginative play. Fleer speculates about what learning may have happened had the teacher intervened in the children’s play script. For example, the teacher could have commented that as Humpty Dumpty kept falling off the wall, the medicine was clearly not working and suggested that the children experiment by mixing substances to create a range of different medicines. Fleer’s vignette provides a glimpse into the ongoing debates about different types of play, their respective contributions to children’s learning, and the degree to which is it appropriate that choices about play are negotiated between children and adults (Wood 2010).
Play-Based Learning Can Exclude Some Children
A different set of concerns and debates about learning in play-based contexts focuses on claims that play can easily be romanticized or seen as unequivocally beneficial. But as Wood (2010) and Grieshaber and McArdle (2010) argue, along with many other critical and post developmentalist theorists, play can both mask and highlight complex power relations, for example, in children’s interactions that lead to some children being routinely excluded on the basis of gender, ethnicity, social class, sexuality, ability/disability, or any other kind of difference. Play-based settings can also inadvertently exclude for children from cultures where play is not particularly valued as a vehicle for learning. Uncritical acceptance of long established, unquestioned assumptions about play can therefore have profound implications for the efficacy of play-based learning contexts for different children. Differential access to participation in play, in turn, can have profound social justice implications.
On the other hand, play dynamics can provide a valuable context for involving children in discussions of diversity, difference, inclusion, exclusion, and social justice. In doing so, they can pave the way for building more inclusive play-based learning environments and creating more equitable learning opportunities.
Conclusion
In summary, learning in play-based contexts raises complex issues that require ongoing consideration. Play-based environments are not a panacea. They present many potential pitfalls but if these are reflexively, creatively, and respectfully negotiated, they can be rich with possibilities for learning.
References
Berthelsen D, Brownlees J, Johansson E (eds) (2009) Participatory learning in the early years. Routledge, New York
Fleer M (2010) Early learning and development: cultural-historical concepts in play. Cambridge University Press, Melbourne
Grieshaber S, McArdle F (2010) The trouble with play. Open University Press, Maidenhead
Siraj-Blatchford I (2009) Quality teaching in the early years. In: Anning A, Cullen J, Fleer M (eds) Early childhood education: society and culture, 2nd edn. Sage, London, pp 147–167
Wood E (2010) Reconceptualizing the play-pedagogy relationship. In: Brooker L, Edwards S (eds) Engaging play. Open University Press, Maidenhead, pp 1–11
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Sumsion, J. (2014). Learning in Play-Based Environments. In: Gunstone, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Science Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_226-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_226-3
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