Pedagogy of Play

A Pedagogy of Play: Supporting playful learning in classrooms and schools

Play is at the heart of childhood. Through play, children learn how to collaborate, how to negotiate rules and relationships, and how to imagine and create. They learn to find and solve problems, think flexibly and critically, and communicate effectively. This book, written by researchers at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, draws on cross-cultural, empirical research to explore what it means to embrace play as a core part of learning in school. The authors address three questions: Why do educators need a pedagogy of play? What does playful learning in schools look and feel like? and How can educators promote playful learning? The book includes practices and strategies from the classroom to the staffroom, eight pictures of classroom practice from four countries, and 18 tools for teachers, school leaders, and professional development providers to support playful learning across content areas and age groups.

You can access a free PDF of the book on the right, along with translations available in Spanish, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. You can also purchase a physical copy of the book in English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese via the Lulu webstore:

• English
• Simplified Chinese
• Traditional Chinese

For an audio version of the book, click on the podcast link in the resource menu or press play in the player below.

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Toward a Pedagogy of Play

Playful provocations and playful mindsets: teacher learning and identity shifts through playful participatory research

Play is a core resource for how children learn. Yet current efforts to bring playful learning into schools often neglect the role adults play in embracing and modeling playfulness. This paper presents findings from a collaboration between the International School of Billund, Denmark, and Project Zero, a research organization at Harvard Graduate School of Education. The study examined Playful Participatory Research (PPR), an emergent qualitative methodology that is both teacher research and a professional development (PD) approach. Drawing on interviews with 21 teachers across the school, we found that PPR positively affects: attitudes towards PD; teachers’ self-perception and identity; incorporation of play into teaching; and overall school culture. Implications suggest that school leaders who aspire to support learning through play in schools should design adult learning environments that mirror the playful learning environments they desire for children, by providing time, resources, and encouragement for playful teacher research and PD.

Toward an American Pedagogy of Play

With the goal of supporting educators in bringing more playful learning into their classrooms and schools, the Pedagogy of Play USA project conducted research in six schools in the Boston area in the Northeastern United States (U.S.). Considering the specific challenges and affordances of the local educational context, we examined what playful learning looks and feels like. Based on our research, we found that playful learning in the classrooms we studied is empowering, meaningful, and joyful. We begin this working paper with an example from a 2nd grade math lesson, one of three examples we share throughout the paper that illustrate what playful learning can look and feel like. Then, we explain the importance of understanding what playful learning involves in U.S. schools, describe the qualitative research methods employed in this work, and introduce the Indicators of Playful Learning: Six United States Schools, a model of what learning through play looks and feels like in the six schools in this study. We conclude with a discussion of the relevance of the indicators model to other U.S. schools. In Appendix A, we share examples of online playful learning in 1st and 5th math instruction.

Toward a South African Pedagogy of Play

What does playful learning look and feel like in South African schools? In this paper we put forward two hypotheses that address this question: a) learning through play in South African schools involves the interrelated experiences of ownership, curiosity, and enjoyment and b) for South African learners and educators, Ubuntu is a central part of playful learning. To explain these hypotheses, we introduce the South African “Indicators of Playful Learning”, a model of what playful learning looks and feels like in the nation’s classrooms. We explain the research methods—including analysis of classroom observations and interviews with learners, teachers, and principals--used in formulating these hypotheses, explore the connections between Ubuntu and playful learning, and share examples of playful learning from South African classrooms to illustrate our hypotheses. We discuss implications of our work, note the preliminary nature of our findings, and suggest next steps for research. Overall, the paper makes the case for a South African pedagogy of play and, by defining the phenomenon of learning through play, begins to explore what such an approach to teaching and learning might involve.   

More than one way: An approach to teaching that supports playful learning

The evidence is clear: play supports learning (e.g., Bateson & Martin, 2013; Frost et al., 2012; Hale & Bocknek, 2015; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Honeyford & Boyd, 2015; Plenty, 2015; Sullivan, 2011). Play can be joyful, iterative, socially interactive, meaningful and actively engaging (Zosh et al., 2017). These emotional, social, and cognitive features of play are why it can powerfully support learning. Play increases children’s motivation. It helps connect children’s knowledge, experiences, and interests. In play, children’s attention is focused. They persist through challenges and engage in deep learning, which supports them in consolidating skills and retaining what they have learned (Liu et al., 2017). Because play supports learning, it should have an important role in school.

While play is often seen as an activity—soccer, chess, or a math game—it also involves a mindset, an outlook and approach towards activities. When participants experience activities at school as empowering, meaningful and joyful, these activities become playful learning. Mindsets can differ among participants; what is playful for one is not playful for all. Thus, playful mindsets are central to play’s role in learning at school. There are three important educational implications here. First, playful learning can be part of any subject because almost any activity—exploring prime numbers or writing a composition—can be playful. Second, promoting playful learning involves teachers activating and cultivating students’ playful mindsets. Third, to activate and cultivate playful mindsets for all students, educators need to be flexible, spontaneous and open to surprise. They need to be playful, taking a more than one way approach to their teaching.

In this working paper, we explore this third implication: the teaching approach of more than one way and its importance in promoting playful learning. We begin with a brief explanation of the Pedagogy of Play (PoP) USA research on which this paper is based, and then turn to an example from a 4th grade classroom that illustrates what is play for one isn’t play for all. We then explain the teaching approach of more than one way. Two additional classroom examples—from early childhood and middle school—are shared to illustrate how more than way supports playful learning. Our analysis concludes with a discussion about how the idea of more than one way may fit into a pedagogy of play framework. A description of the research methods used in the PoP USA study is provided in an appendix.

Playful Participatory Research: An emerging methodology for developing a pedagogy of play

• What is the relationship between play, playfulness, and learning through play?
• How can a pedagogy of play be adapted to address different disciplines, age levels, and cultural contexts?
• What are the aspects of a school culture that promote learning through play and the experiences, rituals, tools, and spaces (e.g. celebrations, documentation, maker spaces) that support a culture of learning through play?
• How can school leaders empower teachers to increase playfulness and learning though play?

Pedagogy of Play - Full Blog Posts Archive

Hello and welcome to the blog of the Pedagogy of Play research project! In 2014, the LEGO Foundation and Project Zero, a research organization at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, began thinking together about learning through play. What is the role of play in empowering children to be lifelong learners? What does school-based playful learning and teaching look and feel like? How can a culture of playful learning be cultivated and sustained in schools?

The Pedagogy of Play (PoP) initiative officially took shape in 2015 with a playful participatory research project based at the International School of Billund (ISB), Denmark. With a mission and vision founded on the belief that play is a core resource for how children learn, ISB was fertile ground for exploring our questions. This co-created research inspired a working set of playful learning principles, practices, and tools and was the inspiration for an evolving pedagogy of play framework.

While this early research was grounded in Denmark, we knew that playful learning is shaped by culture and context — that is, what play looks and feels like in one place is likely not the same in another. So, we then expanded our research to explore other contexts of playful learning and investigate what a cross-cultural pedagogy of play might look like. In 2017 we began working with three schools in the Johannesburg and Pretoria regions of South Africa. In 2019, we partnered with six schools in the Boston area, USA. And in 2020 we identified five schools in Bogota, Colombia with whom to collaborate.

As we dove into playful learning and teaching, we found ourselves thinking deeply about everything from the relationship between play and democracy to playful dispositions (for learners and teachers). In this blog, we share thoughts, questions, and stories from the classroom, featuring both our research network and guest bloggers along the way.

We hope this blog provides a mental playground for tinkering with ideas and building a community of playful thinkers and thoughtful players