Hi – I’m Ian Robson, and I’m a co-investigator on RE:PLAY with a focus on qualitative process insights and evaluation.
In RE:PLAY we like a bit of controlled chaos and creative design, and we like to understand the magic of change in all of that as well. You can see this right across our four themes, which I summarise here in criminal brevity:
- State of Play: what is going on now with playful learning and what do senior leaders think?
- Play in Action: Case study experiences dive into the benefits, challenges and opportunities of playful learning.
- Design to Play: crafts a playful learning design framework, process and toolkit from the expertise of students, module leaders, academic support staff and learning designers.
- Evidencing Play: researches the effects of playful learning on student learning, intrinsic motivation, fear of failure, sense of belonging and creativity.
As the flying monkey to Nic’s evil witch, the Luigi to her Mario, or the level 8 Bard Wood Elf to her level 10 Barbarian Half-Orc (Berserker sub-class), my role is to support activity across our themes, with a particular focus at the moment on theme 3 – design to play.
Ian and Nic in totally realistic image.
Understanding and tracking transformations in playful pedagogy
In Design to Play, not only do we anticipate moments of chaos and bags of creativity, but we want to understand and chart transformations in pedagogy and help others spark their own playful design.
At the moment, whilst plucking on my Bard’s lute and avoiding Nic’s flail, I’m thinking about participatory evaluation in RE:PLAY activities:
- Firstly, we will be holding a workshop with learning designers from across our institutional partners at the end of September, and I want us to pay attention to that process. Our focus at that workshop is to begin shaping a playful learning framework and design process. It will be creative collaborative and playful (of course).
- Right now, across our partner institutions, we are identifying interest from module leaders who want to playfully redesign their modules. We will be comparing experiences and outcomes of module before and after a playful learning redesign. We want to understand what changes, how and why.
So – what principles do we draw on as we approach process and impact evaluation in these two activities and more? Imagine us, drawing round the crackling fire, plans and charts in hand, weapons nearby, ale poured. The scene is set…
The Council of Whispers…
Setting: A dimly lit tavern, the air thick with pipe smoke and the clatter of tankards. Four adventurers huddle over a worn map – not of a dungeon, but of a strange “Project Plan.”
Half-Elf Bard: (Tapping a finger on a diagram labelled “Activity System”) So, this ‘RE:PLAY Project’… it seeks to infuse ‘playful learning’ into the very fabric of institutions. But what do we truly measure in such an endeavour? Do we count the smiles? The ‘level-ups’ in understanding?
Half-Orc Barbarian: (Grunts, flexing a bicep) Bah! I say outcome is what matters! Did the challenge become easier? Did the foe fall quicker? What was the result? Less grumbling in the lecture halls? More gold… I mean, knowledge… acquired?
Dwarven Druid: (Stroking his beard, eyes distant) Nay. The path taken is as vital as the treasure found. We must consider the emergence – the new shoots that sprout where old roots lay. How did the ‘play’ take root? Did it shift the very ground beneath their feet? What unexpected blossoms appeared?
Human Warrior: Aye, the process itself! What strange new rituals did they devise to bring forth this ‘playfulness’? Did they sing new songs of collaboration? Did the sages learn to dance? We should ask: ‘What new ways of doing or thinking appeared that no one had planned?’ And, ‘How did the journey of creating this play feel – was it a chore, or a joyous quest?’
Half-Orc Barbarian: (Scoffs) Joyous quest? More likely a bogged-down march! But fine, if we must delve into the how… How did their ‘toolkit’ help, or hinder? Was it a trusty axe, or a blunt spoon? ‘How did these new trinkets – this framework, this toolkit – actually change how they worked?’
Half-elf Bard: And the very object of their activity, has it changed? What were they truly aiming for before, and what is it now? Is it still just ‘knowledge transfer,’ or something more vibrant, like ‘fostering creative spirit’? We need to ask: ‘Did their shared goal shift or expand once play entered the scene?’ And, ‘What problems or frustrations did these new playful methods address, or even reveal?’
Dwarven Druid: Precisely! It’s not just the final spell, but the incantations, the ingredients, and the very intent behind the casting. We must understand the whole mediating activity system. From the lone scholar designing a module to the grand institution dictating policy – how did each part touch and transform the other through play?
Half-orc Barbarian: (Slams her tankard) So, we ask: ‘What was different about the treasure at the end of the dungeon because of this ‘playful’ way of fighting?’ And also, ‘Did the warriors themselves change how they swung their swords, or just the direction they pointed?’
Human warrior: (Nods slowly) And crucially: ‘What tensions arose when old ways met these new playful currents?’ For even a healthy forest knows the tension of growth.
Half-elf Bard: (Smiling, pulling out a small lute) A complex ballad indeed. But if we listen closely to the whispers of process, object, and emergence, we might just compose a symphony of understanding from this ‘RE:PLAY’ adventure.
Post-Script
If you wish to join this band of slightly smelly but faithful characters, you also can think about how an institution, learning community or individual might change through Playful Learning, and how we might track that. Our thinking at the moment us to place any ‘learning’ in the context of a pedagogical activity system, and to see how the parts of the system change and move as they engage with playful learning pedagogy, and what that does to the object of learning itself. If you are intrigued by this idea, you might want to read more about Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (Sannino et al, 2009), Situational Analysis (Clarke et al., 2022) or Practice Theorisation (Hui et al., 2017).
References
Clarke, A., Washburn, R., and Friese, C. (2022). Situational analysis in practice: mapping relationalities across disciplines (2nd Ed.), London: Sage.
Hui, A., Schatzki, T., and Shove, E. (Eds.) (2017) The Nexus of Practices: Connections, Constellations, Practitioners, London: Routledge.
Sannino, A., Daniels, H., and Gutierrez, K.D. (Eds.) (2009) Learning and Expanding with Activity Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thanks Ian for the nightmares. I don’t think I’ll ever get over seeing Nic as an orc 😀 – Using CHAT makes sense to me, as it’s so simple in essence (I used it as the framework for my PhD so it had to be simple).
I’ll have a go at my own blog entry now.