The power of playful learning

1. The power of playful learning Promoting 21st century skills

2. A talk in 4 parts • The education problem • Introducing the Learning Illusion and a solution – the 6Cs • A case study: early education • Learning vs play • Learning via play • Taking the science of learning out of the lab

3. We are in an education pickle What you probably know • Well cited facts: • America is falling behind in the international rankings (PISA) • 17th in reading behind Finland, Poland, Japan • 30th in math, a full 13 slots behind Slovenia • 23rd in science • 50% of our inner city students do not graduate high school • The US is 12th in the % of citizens with college degrees • 21st Century Partnership – a group of 500 CEOs surveyed say our graduates are not prepared for the workforce • The Military suggests our educational status is a national security problem • Newsweek decries our “creativity crisis.” We are not training students for the jobs of tomorrow

4. What you might not know • NBC’s Education Nation forum focused on the solution to these issues and did not have one scientist at the table • The development of the core curriculum standards for early language and literacy was coordinated by an attorney with little input from those studying the science of language or literacy • Though the charter school movement seems to offer a popular alternative to the crisis, data show that students in charter schools fare no better than those in public schools

5. And when evidence-based research is not at the table we get….. • NCLB and its offshoots to support a Learning Industry • With a lot of testing of factoids • With a lot of teaching to the test • An achievement gap that has stayed stable for 25 years

6. Some personal favorites Tutoring companies that focus on the preschool set for school readiness (business up 20% from last year) A 20 billion dollar “educational” toy industry that helps children prepare for school and beyond

7. An award winning superintendent in Atlanta who cheats so that her kids will do well on the exams (July 2011) And 3rd graders in Florida who take the F-CAT pledge I will do my best on the test I will focus I will get a good night’s sleep I will NOT give up I will take my time

8. Argggggg On the one hand, There is A HUGE and profitable LEARNING INDUSTRY that has defined learning as memorization of content and as scores on a narrowly construed test. On the other, The relatively new SCIENCE OF LEARNING or LEARNING SCIENCES defines learning as a suite of skills that children need to master to be happy and healthy today and ready for the work place of tomorrow. Among these skills are PROCESSESof learning like emotion regulation and executive function, attention, memory, problem solving and language competencies that underlie learning. (Meltzoff, …Science 2009)

9. A talk in 4 parts • The education problem • Introducing the Learning Illusion and a solution – the 6Cs • A case study: early education • Learning vs play • Learning via play • Taking the science of learning out of the lab

10. Put another way… Our culture is living under the Learning Illusion that what matters for evidence based learning is solely mastery of content Our job is to help the culture flip the illusion and to see that content is but one of and not the only aspect of learning that leads to success.

11. Indeed, in school and in the future workplace, memorization of content is becoming less important! • We are leaving the information age, where getting the factoids was enough…. • We are entering a new era, a knowledge age in which information is doubling every 2.5 years. • Integrating information and innovation is key.

12. As Daniel Pink (2005), author of A whole new mind writes: The past few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind-- computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind - creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. These people -- artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers -- will now reap society’s richest rewards….

13. The Partnership for the 21st Century Skills (September 10, 2008) In an economy driven by innovation and knowledge … in diverse workplaces and communities that hinge on collaborative relationships and socialnetworking … the ingenuity, agility and skills of the American people are crucial to U.S. competitiveness. 21st Century Skills: Education and Competitiveness

14. And speaking of how this relates to our education – even at the college level… • Laurence Summers in his January 20, New York Times op ed wrote: …the world is changing very rapidly. Think social networking, gay marriage stem cells or the rise of China. Most companies look nothing like they did 50 years ago. Think General Motors, AT&T or Goldman Sachs…Education will be more about how to process and use information and less about imparting it. This is a consequence of both the proliferation of knowledge — and how much of it any student can truly absorb — and changes in technology. Before the printing press, scholars might have had to memorize “The Canterbury Tales” to have continuing access to them. This seems a bit ludicrous to us today

15. Success in school and in the global workforce of the 21st century requires what we have called the 6Cs

16. Needed for learning: The 6 Cs • 1. Collaboration: • International collaboration and teamwork is the new reality as no one person can master it all. We must encourage students to work together, to accommodate others’ viewpoints, and to consider how to amplify one’s strengths by using the strengths of others and to build community. • 2. Communication: • The grease that allows the new paradigm of international commerce to advance, communication now routinely takes place across geographic boundaries. Communication is about more than just form; it includes taking the listener’s perspective, regardless of cultural differences. • 3. Content: • Students must engage with subject-matter content in a way that develops curiosity and encourages them to question.

17. 4. Critical thinking: • 21st century knowledge workers must ask the right questions, find and synthesize necessary data and connect seemingly disparate facts. Students must learn to be skeptical – even of material produced by PhD’s! • 5. Creative innovation: • Nurturing flexible, high-level thinking that empowers the next generation to become the inventors, entrepreneurs, and designers will power our economy forward – something that countries like Singapore and China now recognize. Where does this material take me? What are its implications? • 6. Confidence: • From physics to pharmaceuticals to plastics, if environments for students do not make it safe to take risks and fail, we become a nation of stagnant followers. Make tasks hard so students can have success and learn from their mistakes. Not everyone gets an “A”

18. The 6Cs emanate directly from our models of developmental psychology and can be used to frame levels and profiles of learning.

19. …..around measurable psychological processes

20. Our job, if we want students to be prepared for the workforce of tomorrow? Flipping the illusion • Will also require that we better articulate not only what children learn, but HOW they learn. • And when we focus on how children learn we find that they learn best in environments where they are • Engaged • Active • Doing something that is meaningful

21. One recent study… Celebrated a Montessori education over the more traditional education. Montessori classrooms are more developmentally appropriate. They embrace a metaphor of learning that is more more playful in which children are active and less passively involved in learning. --Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006

22. The results suggested that… Children in Montessori classrooms at age 5 yrs. did… Better in academic tasks like reading and math Better in social tasks that required positive peer play Better in tasks that required attention to another person’s beliefs At age 12 years these children… Liked school more Were more creative in their writing Did better in reading and math

23. And yet another recent study(Diamond, Barnett, Thomas & Munro, Science, 2007) • Found that playful learning through the Tools of the Mind Program helped children develop executive function skills (EF) like inhibitory control, working memory and cognitive flexibility. • These skills are highly correlated with fluid intelligence and outcomes in math and reading. • When teachers promote these skills through playful -- planful learning throughout the day, children’s outcomes on standardized tests increase -- even for poor children. Can the right kinds of play teach self-control? NYTimes Sept 25, 2009

24. Finally a recent meta-study • Reviewed 164 studies of young children, (along with studies of adults and adolescents) revealed that assisted discovery learning (playful learning) trumped both explicit instruction and unassisted discovery learning pedagogies! Alfieri et al., 2010

25. And again – the same principles for learning even occur at the college level NPR January 2012 Lecturing has never been an effective teaching technique and now that information is everywhere, some say it’s a waste of time. Indeed, physicists have the data to prove it. …students have to be active in developing their knowledge…They can’t passively assimilate it (Mazur) Harvard physics professor Eric Mazur

26. A talk in 4 parts • The education problem • Introducing the learning illusion and a solution – the 6Cs • A case study: early education • Learning vs play • Learning via play • Taking the science of learning out of the lab

27. The Capulets and Montagues of Early Education: Warring factions or compatible approaches? Direct instruction (vs) playful learning OR Learning (via) play? Confounding issues of curricula and pedagogy

28. The case for a core curriculum Foundational academic and social skills are critical for school success! • Early cognitive skills in language, preliteracy, numeracy, executive function and emotion regulation predict later elementary school achievements. • NICHD, Early Child Care Research Network, 2005; Scarborough, 2001; Storch & Whitehurst, 2001; NELP Report, 2009; Dickinson & Freiberg, in press;Baroody & Dowker, 2003; Raver, 2002 ; Melhuish , 2011) • Interventions in these skills make a big difference in later outcomes -- they are malleable • Diamond, Barnett, Thomas, & Munro, 2007; Reynolds, Temple, Ou, Arteaga & White, 2011) • Interventions have have both short and long term effects on outcomes. • Campbell, Pungello, Miller-Johnson, Burchinal, & Ramey, 2001; Campbell, Ramey, Pungello, Sparling, & Miller-Johnson, 2002; Campbell & Ramey, 1995; Schweinhart, 2004; Weikart, 1998; Reynolds, Ou, & Topitzes, 2004; Zigler & Bishop-Josef, 2006

29. But a strong curricula should be delivered with a playful pedagogy THAT INCLUDES both…. • Free play • whether with objects, fantasy and make believe, or physical, is 1) pleasurable and enjoyable, 2) has no extrinsic goals, 3) is spontaneous, 4) involves active engagement, 5) is generally all-engrossing, 6) often has a private reality, 7) is non-literal, and 8) can contain a certain element of make-believe (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Garvey, 1977; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2003; Christie & Johnsen, 1983). • Guided play • (Fein & Rivkin, 1986; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Marcon, 2002; Resnick, 1999; Schweinhart, 2004)

30. Where guided play is…. •A planned play environment, enriched with objects/toys that provide experiential learning opportunities, infused with curricular content (Berger, 2008). Montessori’s “freedom within a prepared environment” • Teachers enhancing children’s exploration and learning by: -- co-playing with children -- asking open-ended questions -- suggesting novel ways for children to explore materials Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk & Singer, 2009 See also Chi, 2009

31. The evidence supporting a playful pedagogy is strong! • From free play • Math and science • Sarama & Clements, 2009a, 2009b; Tamis-LeMonda, Uzgiris, & Bornstein, 2002; Ginsburg, Pappas, and Seo ,2001 • Literacy and language • Dickinson, Cote, & Smith, 1993; Nicolopoulou, McDowell, & Brockmeyer, 2006; Pellegrini & Galda, 1990; Dickinson & Moreton, 1991; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Bergen & Mauer, 200 • Social-emotional skills • Birch & Ladd, 1997; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999; Ladd, Kochenderfer, & Coleman, 1997 • Executive function • Krafft & Berk, 1998; Elias & Berk, 2002; Fantuzzo, Sekino, & Cohen, 2004; Lemche, Lennertz, Orthmann, Ari, Grote, Hafker, et al., 2003 • From guided play • Math • Arnold, Fisher, Ginsburg, Inoue, & Seo, 1999; Doctoroff, & Dobbs, 2002; Griffin & Case, 1996; Griffin, Case, & Siegler, 1994; Whyte & Bull, 2008; Clements & Sarama, 2007; Fisher, 2009; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006 • Literacy and language • Christie & Enz, 1992; Christi & Roskos, 2006; Einarsdottir, 2000; Kavanaugh & Engel, 1998; Roskos & Christie, 2004; Saracho & Spodek, 2006; Nicolopoulou et al. 2006; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006 • Social-emotional skills • Brackett, Rivers & Salovey, in press; Ashiabi , 2007); Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006; Burts et al., 1990; Burts et al., 1992; Hirsh-Pasek, 1991; Love, Ryer, & Faddeis, 1992 • Executive function • Bodrova & Leong, 2007; Diamond, Barnett, Thomas, & Munroe, 2007 ; Blair & Razza, 2007; Duncan, Dowsett, Claessens, Magnuson, Huston, Klebanov, et al., 2007; Gathercole, Tiffany, Briscoe, Thorn, & ALSPAC Team, 2005; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006 While most of these published studies are correlational, a surprising number also use random assignment

32. Why might playful learning work? • Consistent with well worn developmental principles of how children learn • Active not passive • Students are engaged and constructing knowledge not regurgitating information • Meaningful context • Whole child approach to learning • Naturally uses mechanisms that foster strong learning • Interest • Engagement • Intrinsic motivation and autonomy • Attention

33. In fact… • The data suggest that the memorization heavy, one-right-answer approach is not consistent with the evidence suggesting that children learn best when they are active, engaged and learning meaningful material that can be connected to prior knowledge. Or as Chi (2009) suggests: • Active > passive • Constructive (adding new knowledge) > active • Interactive ( with social partners) > constructive

34. Looking at examples from social development

35. A tale of two Spocks • Dr. Benjamin Spock got it all along: social and emotional regulation matters -- a lot • Mr. Spock did not

36. Emotional-regulation includes? • Impulse and emotion control • Self-guidance of thought and behavior (private speech) • Planning • Self-reliance • Socially responsible behavior (Bronson, 2001; Kopp, 1991; Rothbart & Bates, 2006)

37. And measures of self-regulation predict? • • Favorable development and adjustment in cultures as • different as the Canada and China! • • Beginning in early childhood, positive outcomes include: • persistence • task mastery • academic achievement • social cooperation • moral maturity (concern about wrongdoing and willingness to apologize) • sharing and helpfulness • Eisenberg, 2010; Harris et al., 2007; Kochanska & Asksan, 2006; • Posner & Rothbart, 2007; Zhou, Lengua, & Wang, 2009; and many others.

38. The shocking finding??Children with social emotional control do better in school…. Mischel et.al., (1989) for a review Guess what happened over time!!!!! Those who waited scored over 200 points better on their SATs? Eigsti, et al., 2006

39. Further, we can teach emotional control Through children’s play

40. EQ and emotional control does not develop on its own • Children learn it from adults • Children learn it from other children • Children learn it through PLAY: Free and guided Tan-Niam, 1997

41. Looking at examples for academic development

42. Focus on reading… • Telling stories • Word play • (what rhymes with “hat”?) • Singing songs • Dialogical reading • Reading product labels • Engaging conversations • Dramatic play (Christie)

43. One recent example: Vocabulary learning:Han, Vulkelich and Buell (2011) Results! • 49, low-performing 4- and 5- year olds from Head Start Classroom • Random assignment study: Half in Explicit Instruction Vocabulary Protocol (EIVP); Half in EIVP + play • 30 min, 2 X per week for 4 mo • Teach 64 new words (16 per week w/ 4 target words per week) Target words better in EIVP + play

44. In math and spatial skills • Finding patterns • Dividing candy and sharing • Squire & Bryant, 2002 • Sorting trail mix • “I spy” • Noticing more and less • (“She got more ice cream”) • Playing with blocks & trains • Conversations • Playing board games • Ramani & Siegler, 2008

45. Spatial Skills and STEM Disciplines • The Spatial skills used in blocks are basic to human intelligence (e.g., packing a trunk, reading a map) • Spatial skills are also related to later mathematical outcomes • Pruden, Levine, Ginsburg • Further, increasing spatial language also translates into better spatial and mathematical outcomes!

46. Focus on playful learning with blocks Spatial learning in context Research supported in part by Mega Bloks Ferrara, Hirsh-Pasek, Newcombe & Golinkoff (2011) See also Levine, Huttenlocher, Cannon, Pruden, Ratliff & Saunders, 2008

47. Research Questions • Do we talk more about space when we play with blocks? • Do we talk more about space in certain play situations over others? (using words like above, on top of, beside…)

48. Our design…. • 3-5 year olds participated in 2 play conditions with their parent, either: • Free play ( here are some blocks, do what you will) then guided play (can you build a heliport/ garage)? • Guided playathen guided playb ( build a heliport, build a garage) • Preassembled play (here’s a heliport) then guided play

49. Play Situations Pre-assembled Play Free Play Guided Play

50. So what condition prompted the most spatial language? • Above, around, over, through…. • And did playing with blocks offer any advantage over playing with other toys?