Natalie Robinson:
Hi everyone, and welcome to this discussion on play within the primary classroom. My name is Dr. Natalie Robertson and I am a senior lecturer at Deakin University. I am joined today by Louise Paatsch, who is a professor at Deakin University. We have both researched children's play and play-based and inquiry learning in the early and middle years of childhood in national and international contexts.
Louise Paatsch:
Hi everyone. Thanks for listening.
Natalie Robinson:
To begin, we would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We would like to pay our respects to the elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today. Louise, we are holding a discussion about play and its relationship with learning today. What do you think best explains the concept of what play is?
Louise Paatsch:
Well, what a huge question to answer, Natalie.
Natalie Robinson:
Sorry.
Louise Paatsch:
Play can be just so many different things to different people. And for me, it is the nature of play that makes its meaning really complicated and it is multifaceted.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes, isn't it?
Louise Paatsch:
You know, I see where students inquire about the world around them using their imagination to explore or discover, collaborate, improvise or create. And it is an engaging experience for young children where they can ask questions, build narrative. They build the literacy skills, they can design investigations, what else? Or explore mathematical and scientific concepts. They co-construct knowledge of the world around them. And what we also see is huge opportunities for interacting and communicating with others and that is how they form their peer relationships as well as they interact.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. And those peer relationships and the process of interacting and communicating, it is such a great way for children to build their resilience and their self-regulation as well.
Louise Paatsch:
Absolutely.
Natalie Robinson:
They make those interpretations and form explanations and form such great arguments based on their discoveries as well. I think that that is such a great way to explain what the key elements of play is.
Louise Paatsch:
Absolutely.
Natalie Robinson:
What I also find is important to understand about play and perhaps could also be the most complicated aspect is that it is not defined by any one experience.
Louise Paatsch:
No, not at all.
Natalie Robinson:
Play incorporates a wide range of activities. You might have children that are engaged in play when they are playing construction with blocks. They might be in play when they are running around on the playground, running, climbing, swinging. They could be wrestling on the grass with their friends or creating artefacts or creating a dance. It is just so wide in variety. But I think that the most important aspect that we need to consider about play is that there is always or almost always a component of imagination involved.
Louise Paatsch:
That's such an important point, I think, Natalie. I think in a play-based inquiry learning approach in the classroom, the main aims are to use your imaginary context. And for students, you know, their internal motivation to support that inquiry of their world and through these experiences, students are using their imagination, their learning, and I think when teachers identify this learning, then they can support these students in what they're playing, but also in other parts of the curriculum as well.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. And it reminds me of when we visited that school last year and we saw children involved in a play based and inquiry...
Louise Paatsch:
That's right. Yes.
Natalie Robinson:
Approach when they were learning about mammals.
Louise Paatsch:
Oh yes, that is right.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. And they would be introduced to the concept of mammals through a whole group discussion.
Louise Paatsch:
That's right. And then they had the small stations. Yes.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. And they were set up by the teacher. And remember they had that science area where they...
Louise Paatsch:
Oh, they had the lab coats.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. And they would be able to learn in that section more about mammals through books or the computer or iPads.
Louise Paatsch:
And then they had the toys and the blocks as well. That is right.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. And they were prompted by the resources in that section to build something and then act it out with the toys.
Louise Paatsch:
Absolutely. I remember that classroom really well, Natalie. I also remember that this classroom had two other important features. I think for me, the first was about the powerful role of the imagination played in the students' inquiries. And I think the second was the role of the teacher. Such a critical role for me because I saw that teacher, how she made the students play and their learning really purposeful. She used a whole lot of integrated teaching approaches that allowed the students the time to explore with their peers, but also time on their own. She also knew when she needed to step in, though, she was not just watching them. She stepped in, she asked more questions, she provided some direction and she also prompted them to engage multiple learning areas while in the play.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes, it was really amazing. And I remember they were writing their findings, discoveries and stories up from that play into books which was corrected by the teacher using the Victorian curriculum English focus areas for writing.
Louise Paatsch:
Yes, that is right. They were making assessments. And while she was doing that, she was looking at the children's text structure, their punctuation and expression of ideas. She was also looking at prompting and adding a problem about which they could then write. And then further to this, the teachers were getting involved in the student's play, they always supported them, whether it was, as I say, prompting with a problem. And therefore the children were then saying, we have got to resolve this, and they had to work it out and problem solved. The teacher was also making language assessments and she was also supporting general capabilities, particularly the one around the social and emotional.
Natalie Robinson:
Very, very integrated. And I think I also noticed the mathematics in there too.
Louise Paatsch:
Yes, definitely.
Natalie Robinson:
Students were recording measurements of animal footprints and counting incorporated into their play inquiries as well.
Louise Paatsch:
Absolutely. There are so many opportunities for the children's learning when they were using play-based and inquiry. And I suppose this is why so many researchers that we know suggest that when you examine children's play, you can actually gain insight into their conceptual awareness of a topic, the link with their social capabilities, the link to their communication, language and cognitive abilities, as well as their mathematical concepts, numeracy, etc. And I think we can capture both the processes and the outcomes of children's learning.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. I am finding that there is a lot of common misconceptions of play. For example, I am constantly hearing adults saying how fun or joyful play is for young children and that children learn through play because they find it to be fun. However, play is not always a place of joy or pleasure for children.
Louise Paatsch:
No, not always.
Natalie Robinson:
Sometimes, for example, it could bring up some strong social biases or children could be exploring some complex and challenging ideas. Often, for example, children will be exploring the concept of death or they will be exploring concepts of fear that they have experienced, they've heard about or they have seen on TV, for example.
Louise Paatsch:
I absolutely agree with you.
Natalie Robinson:
And so I just worry that such a romanticised view of play, just being fun can take away that significance and depth of the experience for the child. And also, we cannot assume that children are having fun when they are playing.
Louise Paatsch:
Oh, absolutely. I remember one of the schools I was at watching the children play and they were working with their topic of safari and building their knowledge around mammals, and they were all allocating roles. And one girl said she did not want to be a cheetah, which was very funny. But the other children told her that only boys could be the cheetah because boys were faster. And the girls said that there were girl cheetahs in the wild and that she was the fastest runner than that Daniel, who was a boy in a class. Anyway, there was conflict and they had to resolve it, but she ended up being a zebra.
Natalie Robinson:
Oh, no. And was she upset?
Louise Paatsch:
Yes, absolutely. But she did not, I mean, you know, they work it out and they end up resolving it. And that's part of that whole conflict resolution that is really important for them in social skills.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. And look, I have seen very similar situations unfold as well, and children can be left out of the play altogether. But as you said, that is an important part of building up those general capabilities in social and personal skills. I think that it is just important for us as adults to just acknowledge that children will internalize experiences and knowledge during play.
Louise Paatsch:
Yes, Natalie, there is another common misconception that I often hear too. It is around that whole notion that play-based learning is led wholly by the child and that adults have a minimal role in their play in learning and they see it as a time for just free play and children can do what they like.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes, I know in my research, I often find that this free-play approach will often become a situation where the teacher then becomes a security guard overseeing the children and intervening only if there is a behavioural issue or if someone's safety is at risk. And it creates a bit of a strain situation because there is that big belief by teachers and adults that free play best supports children engagement in play because they are giving children all this time to run free and interact and play with each other. However, what I have found is that children are less engaged in play and learning when there is not an appropriate or good balance of play where the child leads the experience and situations also where the teacher gets involved and guides children in the experience as well.
Louise Paatsch:
In the research that I have done with Andrew Nolan, we have seen that was a real issue for the teachers to say, what is my role in this play? And what we saw was that those teachers that actually became in certain situations the player, it was really important then for the children to see what a player does to role model that and then they will be able to move it into their own play context later on. The adult has a crucial role here. And probably one of the most challenging parts for teachers is actually to know when to come in and when to remove and when to observe and just look at the children playing.
Natalie Robinson:
We'll be talking about this topic in module two, won't we?
Louise Paatsch:
That's right.
Natalie Robinson:
We'll really delve deeply into that. Definitely agree with you, Louise, that integrated approach of using different pedagogical styles in children's play truly is essential for a meaningful play-based and inquiry learning approach.
Louise Paatsch:
Absolutely. Thanks, Natalie. It has been so fantastic to talk about this with you today.
Natalie Robinson:
Yes. Thank you for joining me and having a chat. And I look forward to delving into the topic more deeply in just a few weeks’ time when we catch up at the webinar.
Louise Paatsch:
Absolutely. Looking forward to it. Thanks, Natalie.
[End of transcript]
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