{"id":9621,"date":"2023-09-12T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/?p=9621"},"modified":"2023-09-12T09:06:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-12T08:06:18","slug":"am-i-having-fun-yet-dipping-a-toe-into-playful-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/tel\/2023\/09\/12\/am-i-having-fun-yet-dipping-a-toe-into-playful-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"Am I having fun yet? Dipping a toe into Playful Learning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In July I was lucky enough to attend the Playful Learning Conference<\/a> at the University of Leicester. This is where people who are passionate about incorporating play into Higher Education gather to share ideas, experiences and, most importantly, their failures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full disclosure: my notes from the train on the way up to Leicester read \u2018I’m feeling nervous\u2026 I don’t think I’m very playful.\u2019 But I always try to make my own teaching sessions as active for my learners as possible, and wanted to pick up some ideas to make my own sessions more engaging, so I grabbed my recorder, slapped some sparkly stars on my face and joined the party.*<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To forge a sense of belonging, we were put into campfire groups. And I was lucky enough to be in a group with some amazing, supportive, inspirational, very playful people. Like Professor Pen Holland, who co-developed the Catastrophic card game at the University of York<\/a> to support core Biology learning during the transition to Higher Education. And Professor Nicola Whitton, who has worked on several books and articles on Playful Learning (including \u2018Using games to enhance learning and teaching : a beginner’s guide <\/a>[1]<\/a> which is available via our library). And Giskin Day from Imperial, whose conference keynote shared several wonderful ideas, my favourite being Imperial\u2019s genius Breaking Bag<\/a>, which is an escape room in a backpack designed as an engaging way for GCSE maths and science students to consolidate their learning. And\u2026 so many more inspiring people. And all of them seemingly so much more playful than me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I got to thinking\u2026 OK. I\u2019m not at their level. But what can I try to start me on my journey? What can I share with other Playful-curious newbies out there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the conference sessions asked people to share their playful \u2018breadcrumbs\u2019: easily accessible ideas to add a dash of play to your teaching. These included adding photos of students\u2019 pets to the bottom of Canvas announcements (students shared their photos with the lecturer and there was a real buzz as to whose pet would appear each week); adding silly things to the end of Panopto recordings, to reward students who actually watched the video; or hiding \u2018easter eggs<\/a>\u2019 in online module handbooks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few of the speakers shared their ideas for adapting well-known UK TV shows for use in their teaching. Such as information literacy \u2018Would I lie to you\u2019, where students were presented with a statement and then asked to vote whether the statement was true or false. And a diabetes version of Play Your Cards Right, which asked whether the answer to a question was higher or lower than the number on the card. I\u2019ve done something similar in the past to jazz up the dull but essential topic of data protection (so maybe I\u2019m more playful than I think?).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With my Learning Technologist hat on, there are some easy ways to get a bit more playful using the digital tools we have to hand here at Sussex:<\/p>\n\n\n\n