Micro-module 4: Different forms of playfulness

This micro-module has four tasks:

In this task you will need a printer, a pair of scissors, a rivet; and a bit of patience and dexterity.
In this task you can read and learn more about how the Play Wheel can inspire you to adapt the Play Wheel as an inspirational tool in your everyday practice as a teacher.
In this task you learn how to use the Play Wheel as a didactical tool to plan and structure learning activities.
In this final task you try to use the Play Wheel as a tool to evaluate and reflect on your teaching-

Task 1: Make your own Play Wheel. By following the link below, you can open a file and print out the parts needed for making your own Play Wheel.

Playwheel-schools-playful-learning-UK.pdf

While cutting and putting the wheel together you will have to read and reflect on the concepts written on it.

Task 2: Study the Play Wheel and try to grasp the idea of using a tool with different movable circles. See TEXT BOX 4.1 and 4.2 below!

Imagine or remember learning activities where you were learning together with others creating shared Ideas, doing meaningful activities where unpredictable situations occurred. Can you reconstruct the activity using the three principles of Playful Learning Creating Shared Ideas, Daring the Unpredictable, Insisting on Meaningfulness and the PlayWheel?

To get a thorough introduction and example of how to use the Play Wheel you should read the following text. The text focuses on a playwheel constructed with categories and words from digital game universes.

DRS Digital Library – DRS Biennial Conference Series: Introducing the play activity wheel: Designing social, physical and playful learning activities from digital game universes

Task 3: Use the Play Wheel as a didactical tool to plan a learning activity, a lesson or longer teaching programs. See TEXT BOX 4.2 below.

You can use the Play Wheel to get a bigger awareness and understanding of how you are used to plan your lessons in school. With the Play Wheel you get a tool to introduce a more playful approach to plan learning activities.

Try to spin the wheel and the five categories in a random way and then challenge yourself to plan a lesson with the outcome of the different categories. Try to reflect on the process as you go along with the planning. Remember to integrate the three playful learning principles Creating Shared Ideas, Daring the Unpredictable, Insisting on Meaningfulness

Task 4: Use the Play Wheel as a tool to evaluate and reflect on your teaching. The Play Wheel can be helpful to reconstruct your learning activities in a defined number of categories.

Try to re-visit a planned lesson by using and turning the Play Wheel. Does it make sense and is it possible to reconstruct the lesson? Did you deliberately use playful elements and categories? What categories were not used? Why not? Did something occur during the activities that inhibited a playful learning approach? Would you do something different, if you had the opportunity to re-do the lesson? What and why?

TEXT BOX 4.1: What does “A Playful Approach” mean?

A playful approach implies using some of the qualities of play to explore what interests or challenges us. Here are three principles you may recognize from your work with children and adolescents

1: Create Shared Ideas

When we play, we create fictional universes, scenarios and situations. We imagine for a while that the world looks different – by taking on new roles and perspectives.

2: Dare the Unpredictable

When we play, we open ourselves to a world of opportunities and options with no fixed ending. In doing so, we practice handling unpredictable situations and processes.

3: Insist on Meaningfulness

For play to be fun, it has to make sense to everyone involved. This allows us to practice creating meaning together and ensure everyone plays an active role.

You will have to return to the three principles and bring them into use once you reach the three tasks related to this module.

TEXT BOX 4.2: Introduction to the Play Wheel

The Play Wheel

The Play Wheel illustrates the many choices involved in a playful teaching situation and helps you, as a teacher or school educator, or your team, to identify and reflect on playful approaches to teaching.

The purpose of Play Wheel is to support and inspire teaching with playful approaches in schools. It can be used for planning, implementation and evaluation of playful learning, from short activities to longer educational courses. The wheel consists of five colored rings, each divided into subcategories.

Origin

Developed in 2019 by educators at University College Copenhagen (KP), the Play Wheel demonstrates how playful approaches can be effectively integrated into teaching to enhance student learning processes. It has evolved through continuous testing and feedback from educators and students.

Play types and play media (the yellow and green rings) are partly inspired by the categorizations made by French intellectual Roger Callois (1958) and partly by the Danish researcher Jørn Martin Steenhold (2011) and his thoughts on different creative categories of play.

This version for primary schools is developed by educators and a group of teachers studying at University College Copenhagen.

The first circle:

Education goals and content: The teacher defines the lesson’s concrete goals and specific subject matter.

The second circle:

Typical educational and organization forms: Education and organization forms are the general overall didactic forms for the education and are crosscutting for the subject or course.

The Third Circle:

Play and playful elements: The chosen play types represent the most common play forms, although there is often overlap between these forms. A given play activity can contain more than one play form. For example hopscotch contains both physical activity and playing by rules.

The fourth circle:

Play media: This includes a broad selection of media types. As play types can also be staged without physical components, the body and language are also included here.

The fifth Circle

Locations: This indicates places where the playful, creative and experimental teaching can take place.

Playful Learning

Curriculum

Micro-module 4: Different forms of playfulness

TEXT BOX 4.1: What does “A Playful Approach” mean?

TEXT BOX 4.2: Introduction to the Play Wheel

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