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½¿É«µ¼º½ ECR Network Symposium Series 2021: Overcoming challenges in educational research – December

½¿É«µ¼º½ ECR Network Symposium Series 2021: Overcoming challenges in educational research

The theme for 2021 is ‘Overcoming challenges in educational research’ Discussant: Professor Pete Boyd, University of Cumbria  Who is it for? The ECR Network’s symposia series is targeted...

Connection and creativity despite Covid-19: Playful learning at university during the pandemic

Over the past decade, interest in play and playful learning in higher education (HE) has grown significantly (James & Brookfield, 2014; James & Nerantzi, 2019). Publications, conferences and...

Editorial: The playful academic

Imagine a place of learning where progressive failing, building resilience, and developing individual and collective skills, values and creativity are not only thought about as a theoretical...

The playful academic

This special ½¿É«µ¼º½ Blog series, edited by Maarten Koeners, explores how play and playfulness can facilitate learning in higher education – from the points of view of educator, researcher,...

Playful creativity

‘Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do.’ (Attributed to Jean Piaget) Learning is often compromised by competitiveness (Brown & Vaughan, 2009). Bred from the...

How children’s play has adapted over the pandemic- Yinka Olusoga and Kate Cowan

Yinka Olusoga is a historian of childhood and education in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield. Herr research focuses on the discursive construction of children and childhood in...

Kate Cowan

Kate Cowan is an early years specialist researching children’s play and communication from a multimodal perspective. Based at UCL Knowledge Lab, her research covers areas including literacy,...

Positioning ‘play’ purposefully in the adult language learning classroom

Times are tough for university students and teachers alike in this pandemic world. ‘Play’ could offer an easy antidote to the soulnessness of digital overload. Incorporating ‘fun’ and...

Playful interventions: Measuring impact on learning

Figure 1: PMM tracking individuals’ understanding of ‘playfulness and me’ over the course of several workshops and a field trip. Red text was added before any workshops were...

Does playfulness have a place in higher education? A reflection on using playfulness when teaching research methods to postgraduate students

Playfulness has been defined as a disposition (Barnett, 1991) a mindset (Skilbeck, 2017) and fundamental for creativity (Cheng-Ping Chang, 2013). I have spent many years working in play and...

Becoming a playful academic: A personal story

Throughout my life I have been exposed to an increasingly stressful and demanding expectation to perform, dictated not only by society (cultural pressures) but also through beliefs deeply...

Playful praxis: A student’s perspective

Now in my fifth year of higher education (HE), I am in the unfortunate position to have more years as an undergraduate to reflect on than most, yet still have more to look forward to. Yes, I am a...