Bridging Research, Practice, and Community: A Holistic Model for Play-Based Learning in Early Childhood Education

• In Event: Global Contexts for Research-Practice Partnerships: They Come in All Shapes and Sizes

Abstract

Objectives
Educational reforms in early childhood education (ECE) increasingly emphasize holistic approaches to child development, yet implementation models often fail to address the interconnected roles of schools, families, and communities. The Centre for University & School Partnership (CUSP) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong has developed a research-informed framework to bridge this gap, supporting almost half of Hong Kong's kindergartens in adopting a collaborative, play-based learning approach. This session aims to examine how professional development (PD), research-practice partnerships (RPPs), and leadership capacity-building create sustainable ecosystems for whole-child development.
Methods
The session presents findings from a multi-year RPP involving researchers, school leaders, teachers, and parents. Key components include:
● Professional Learning Communities: Centralized and school-based workshops, collegial lesson planning, and annual conferences.
● Leadership Development: Structured mentoring and capacity-building for school administrators to foster a supportive culture for play-based learning.
● Home-School Partnerships: Workshops for parents to align home environments with child-centered practices.
● Digital and Community Resources: Online platforms and mobile applications for resource sharing and community engagement.
Data sources include:
1. Workshop feedback and participation data from 2015–2024.
2. Case studies of participating kindergartens.
3. Impact measures assessing children’s socioemotional growth and playfulness.
Results
The findings reveal that a holistic support model significantly enhances the capacity of educators, parents, and school leaders to implement positive whole-child development practices. Key success factors include:
1. School leaders and development officers act as intermediaries, facilitating collaboration among teachers, parents, and researchers.
2. On-site support visits, lesson-planning workshops, and parent-teacher meetings foster shared goals and values.
3. Tools such as the Whole Child Development Evaluation, classroom observations, and digital platforms enhance communication and learning.
Leadership emerged as a critical enabler, with supportive and trustful school cultures correlating with higher teacher efficacy and commitment. Moreover, the integration of home-school partnerships strengthened the alignment of practices across contexts, creating a consistent and supportive environment for children.
Significance
The Play-Learn-Grow project offers a contextually grounded response to the global discourse on research-practice partnerships (RPPs), particularly in navigating the tensions between structured, guided play and free play in early childhood education. Situated in Hong Kong, the project addresses the cultural and pedagogical challenges of fostering whole-person development in kindergartens, where teachers often grapple with balancing predetermined teaching objectives and emergent, child-led goals. This tension creates professional uncertainty and perceived risk, underscoring the need for culturally responsive RPPs that support teacher agency and adaptive pedagogy.
By building trust through sustained collaboration between universities and schools, the project exemplifies how RPPs can support teachers in stepping beyond their comfort zones to more responsively meet children's developmental needs. Crucially, the partnership emphasizes making children’s learning outcomes and behavioral changes visible—an essential process in gaining teacher buy-in and sustaining pedagogical change by providing diverse training offered by the Centre for University and School Partnership. This case highlights how RPPs, when attuned to local educational cultures (parents’ expectations) and systemic pressures, can effectively mediate between global models and context-specific practice, contributing to more equitable and impactful learning environments.

Author

• Alan C. K. Cheung, The Chinese University of Hong Kong