A playground model for learning Summer CELT Learning and Teaching Conference

15 July 2015, MMU Dr Jenny Fisher @jennycfisher & Chrissi Nerantzi @chrissinerantzi

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Playground_at_Fuji-Hakone-Izu_National_Park.jpg

The plan

1. Experience playful learning

– Make > Story > Animate

– Gamify?

2. Playground pedagogy

3. Reflect on your practice and opportunities for playful learning.

Story themes

Sustainability Internationalisation

Inclusivity Creativity

Innovation Professionalism

Ideas for gamification

• Collect points on specific criteria

• Add a twist as you go along

• Voting

• Collaboration

• Competition

• Assessment

• Badges

• Use smart devices

If we have time, we could briefly discuss what follows

I think we should leave this as it will take up time

Animating as assessment

Why animation ?

• Variety in assessment

• Students’ diverse learning styles

• Authentic learning (Herrington, Rees and Oliver, 2010)

• Employability – increasing use of digital technology

• Research identifies that students benefit from creating and designing artefacts for audiences (Hoban, 2009)

Why animation?

Embedding animating in curriculum

• Threshold concept (Meyer and Land, 2003)

– Facilitating students understanding of troublesome knowledge

• ‘students keen to be involved in developing the digital environment’(Beetham, 2014:online)

• ‘People learn more deeply from words and pictures than from words alone’ (Meyer, 2005: 31)

Embedding assessment

Student feedback on animation

“Go animate was a new experience which promoted group work and research skills, it was an enjoyable way to interact with peers and to work together on a topic”. “This

animation was a lot more enjoyable than an essay or a presentation”

“I think this animation is a fantastic idea and without it I wouldn't have passed the modual I am normally not a very academic student and having dyslexia struggle to do essays this animation allowed me to show my creative side and I would definitely recommend this you carry on with this type of assessment”

“I’m a L6 Social Care student and I took this unit last year – I really enjoyed this assessment, but I would have loved an opportunity to have done it in form of an animation... What a great new way of assessing students, and giving them a chance to develop skills as well as demonstrating theoretical understanding!”

Playground Pedagogy Three main theories of

teaching (Ramsden, 2008)

Playground 1.0 supervised >

feeling safe, developing trust

Theory 1: Teaching as telling,

transmission or delivery -

PASSIVE

Playground 2.0 participatory >

gaining playful confidence

through guided playful

learning

Theory 2: Teaching as

organising or facilitating

student activity - ACTIVE

Playground 3.0 self-

determined > autonomy,

developing and sustaining

play-active practice

Theory 3: Teaching as making

learning possible – SELF-

DIRECTED

Nerantzi, C. (2015) The Playground Model for Creative Professional Development, In: Nerantzi, C. & James, A. (eds.) (2015) Exploring Play in Higher Education, Creative Academic Magazine, Issue 2A, June 2015, pp. 40-50, available at http://www.creativeacademic.uk/

Pedagogical Playground Model (Nerantzi, 2015)

Playground 1.o supervised

Playground 2.0 participatory

Playground 3.0 self-determined

Community Spaces – Connecting people

Open Spaces - Expansive minds

Story Spaces - Connecting hearts

Making Spaces – Connecting hands

Thinking Spaces – Connecting minds

Unit Learning Outcomes On successful completion of this unit, participants will be able to: • Critically discuss creative teaching as a driver for student engagement

and learning in their own professional context. • Develop and implement an innovation in their own practice. • Critically evaluate their innovation. 2 terms practice-based assessment – implement and evaluate an innovation Digital portfolios owned by students

• Greenhouse contributions

• Academic posters • Conference

workshops • Published articles

Nerantzi, C. & James, A. (eds.) (2015) Exploring Play in Higher Education, Creative Academic Magazine, Issue 2a, Issue 2b, June 2015, available athttp://www.creativeacademic.uk/magazine.html

“I found problem solving two ideas at once great because when you ran out of ideas for one problem, you could switch to the other one, unblocking the mental block.” session 2

What students said “Realised how my own learning preference/beliefs influence and perhaps constrain my practice as a teacher.” session 3

“Very exciting. I’ve got creative ideas already able to use. Motivated to do reading.” session 1

“The best one! Making is learning and learning is knowing you are able to make sense of things in pictures, ideas, balloons, people smile ;)” session 5

“Playing with ideas leads to innovation.” session 4

student

http://www.curriculet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/Blooms-Taxonomy.png

Creative reflection: James & Brookfield (2014, 54)

Criticality Creativity

Playfulness Imagination

Reflection

“Blending creativity and reflection, and infusing them with qualities of imagination and play, creates a powerful cocktail that enhances learning”. James & Brookfield (2014, 55)

Animated stories workshop using LEGO pictures from the workshop

Collaborative storymaking using LEGO

Creating scenes

Collaborative storymaking using LEGO

Animating collaborative story using own devices

Sharing animation

We asked colleagues at the end how they could use such an approach in their own practice.

Below are their responses

• Explores identity • Encourage inclusivity and social engagement • Team working skills • Teamwork, collaboration – Hands on, creative thinking etc etc • Explore complex concepts • Represent processes / experiences • Library – illustrate challenge of how to find information for their assignments • Making a creative activity at the level of the students • Including physical creativity as well as digital creativity • Possibly use for induction – to explore person identity then groups • Think visually • Great ice-breaking activity as a precursor to group work in a safe environment • Fun / playful activities help in communication / sharing ideas • Will definitely use – great ice-breaker

References 1

Beetham, H. (2014) Students' experiences and expectations of the digital environment. [Online] [accessed on 10th June 2015] https://www.jisc.ac.uk/blog/students-experiences-and-expectations-of-the-digital-environment-23-jun-2014 Herrington, J., Reeves, T.C & Oliver, R. (2010). A guide to authentic e-learning. London and New York: Routledge. Hoban, G., McDonald, D., and Ferry, B. (2009). Improving pre-service teachers' science knowledge by creating, reviewing and publishing slowmations to teacher tube. Paper presented at the Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference Charlestown, SC. [Online] [Accesssed on 25th February 2015] http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1110&context=edupapers James, A. & Brookfield S. (2014) Engaging Imagination. Helping Students become creative and reflective thinkers, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

References 2

James, A. & Brookfield S. (2014) Engaging Imagination. Helping Students become creative and reflective thinkers, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Meyer, R. (2009). Multimedia Learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Meyer, J. and Land, R. (2003) Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines. [Online] [Accessed 10th June 2015] http://www.etl.tla.ed.ac.uk//docs/ETLreport4.pdf Nerantzi, C. (2015) The Playground Model for Creative Professional Development, In: Nerantzi, C. & James, A. (eds.) (2015) Exploring Play in Higher Education, Creative Academic Magazine, Issue 2A, June 2015, pp. 40-50, available at http://www.creativeacademic.uk/ Nerantzi, C. & James, A. (eds.) (2015) Exploring Play in Higher Education, Creative Academic Magazine, Issue 2a, Issue 2b, June 2015, available at http://www.creativeacademic.uk/magazine.html

A playground model for learning Summer CELT Conference, 15 July 2015, MMU

Dr Jenny Fisher @jennycfisher & Chrissi Nerantzi @chrissinerantzi

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c5/Playground_at_Fuji-Hakone-Izu_National_Park.jpg