Active Playful Learning: Empowering Student Agency to Capture Authentic, Equitable Learning

• In Event: Promoting Competence-Based Education: Landscape, Assessment, and Practices

Abstract

Presentation Summary:

American education is at an inflection point. Decades of education reform that focused on boosting students’ reading and math achievement (Vinovskis, 2009) had limited success (Dee & Jacob, 2011; Ladd, 2017) and detrimental effects on the classroom experience (Berliner, 2009, 2011; Markowitz, 2018; Reback et al., 2014). It is critical to re-examine the purpose of education and consider how to promote a broader suite of competencies to benefit students in school and beyond. This paper describes a novel, comprehensive model of education, Active Playful Learning (APL) that is rooted in evidence from the science of learning. The model highlights the importance of identifying competencies that are measurable and sufficiently flexible to enable student and educator agency in documenting skills and growth. It is framed around a three-part equation of effective implementation and assessment under this model must align with its principles of recognizing 1) students’ personal, school, community, and cultural experiences and values; 2) how students learn best; and 3) what students need to know to be successful in school and life.

The first crucial step to effectively implement and assess learning is to consider what students bring to the table. To be informative, teachers must integrate knowledge from assessments with their knowledge of their students' diverse backgrounds. Thus, to effectively promote learning, assessment must be designed to yield information that is valid and equitable for all students (Nasir et al., 2021).

A second step is to align implementation and assessment with the science of how students learn, or the characteristics found to be compatible with how the human brain learns. Namely, students learn best through active engagement built on social interactions, and by participating in activities that are meaningful, iterative, and joyful (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015, 2020). These principles are easily promoted through child-directed, adult-facilitated guided play (Zosh et al., 2022). Guided play provides students agency to decide how to solve problems and demonstrate their understanding, which provides unique opportunities to authentically capture students’ understanding and misconceptions.

The third, complementary step requires confirming that our implementation and assessments capture the skills that teachers, schools, and society have identified as important and offer multiple inroads to meeting those standards. Content areas such as reading and math are important. So too are a breadth of skills. The 6 Cs competencies (Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2016) support this perspective and promote the need to support and measure students’ skills related to collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation, and confidence (grit and growth mindset). The 6 Cs outcomes are intentionally broad, prioritizing agency and educator expertise to empower classroom learning communities while using their mandated curricula. The 6 Cs approach recognizes students’ unique capabilities, remaining open to meaningful, culturally responsive instruction (Gay, 2000).

In the Active Playful Learning model teachers and students have increased agency and interaction in the ways they teach and master curricular goals. Pilot data from several district schools suggest that the cascading educational benefits bolsters education success for all students.

Authors

• Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University

• Elias Blinkoff, Temple University

• Kimberly Turner Nesbitt, University of New Hampshire