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5 Characteristics of a Play World
Earlier this week, I tuned in to a public lecture from Laureate Professor Marilyn Fleer and her team. They presented their latest findings from the Conceptual Playlab at Monash University.
The Conceptual PlayLab is a research group. They investigate play-based models for teaching young children science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
The lecture shared insights from the last three years of research about how infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers think, create and collectively innovate in STEM.
A foundation of their research is the experience of a conceptual play world that I want to explore today.
In the lecture, Fleer outlined the five key pedagogical characteristics of a conceptual play world:
- Select a story for the Conceptual Playworld that considers the context of children’s development and their interests.
- Design a Conceptual Playworld space to explore concepts and social and emotional development.
- How to enter and exit the world.
- Plan the play inquiry or problem scenario.
- Plan teacher interactions to build conceptual learning in the role.
The notes above are from this overview from Professor Marilyn Fleer: The Five Characteristics of a Conceptual Playworld (Fleer, 2018). This short document also provides some elaborations and practices for each characteristic.
