Teacher Education and Play Pedagogy

International Perspectives

Eleni Loizou, Jeffrey Trawick-Smith, Eleni Loizou, Jeffrey Trawick-Smith

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367711795
• eBook ISBN: 9781000555769
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Play has always been vital to the field of early childhood education, for teacher educators and early years teachers, as a pedagogy and way of organizing learning. With diverse perspectives from scholars around the world, Teacher Education and Play Pedagogy is a unique text focusing on teacher education for play pedagogy and uniquely blends research and praxis on authentically implementing play practices.

This book is divided into two main sections: part 1 unfolds the different ways in which teacher educators have been preparing early years teachers to support children's play and consider professional preparation for a play pedagogy; part 2 provides information on how teachers take on different roles, act in diverse ways to effectively support children to develop play skills, to learn and develop. With contributions from across the early childhood spectrum, researchers present their empirical work through multiple forms of data with deep reflections and critical stances towards the play pedagogy implementation.

Teacher Education and Play Pedagogy is a valuable text for early childhood education undergraduate and graduate courses, for early childhood education researchers, as well as an essential reference for professional development programs and seminars.

PART 1
Teacher Education for Play Pedagogy

1
INTRODUCTION
Play Pedagogy Conceptualizations and Reflections on Existing Research

Eleni Loizou and Jeffrey Trawick-Smith

DOI: 10.4324/9781003149668-2

Play is a multidimensional activity and a challenging concept to define, as it can be conceptualized from different perspectives (e.g., play as a context, play as a way of learning, play as behavior). This provides researchers in the early childhood education field with space to explore its multiple potential and unfold the elements upon which we can agree. The common fundamentals that we often consider when defining play refer to (1) freedom of choice, (2) the player being intrinsically motivated and actively involved in play, (3) the process being more important than the product, and (4) the element of make-believe (Rubin, Fein, & Vandenberg, 1983; Trawick-Smith, 2020). Defining play is important in setting up a common ground on which we can then look at children’s actions, teachers’ practices and make the necessary and effective changes to support both of them. Nevertheless, a definition of play cannot be context and culture free. Thus, in this book we start off by drawing upon the common characteristics of play while also reflecting on ways different countries and cultures conceptualize this behavior policy and practice wise. Moreover, we unfold how we can best support teachers to unfold their own definition of play and develop their play practices while grounding them on the theory of play, learning, and development. This book presents ground-breaking work on teacher education for the development of play pedagogy through an international lens.

Play Pedagogy, Learning and Development

It is commonly agreed that play is important in the early childhood field and it is an essential aspect of early childhood pedagogy. We acknowledge the value of play pedagogy as it provides the pedagogic space in which children explore the world, have meaningful experiences, and, along with teachers, co-construct their learning and development. We believe that children learn and develop while playing and through play. The numerous studies that highlight children’s learning and development while involved in play (Trawick-Smith, Swaminathan, & Liu, 2016; Wager & Parks, 2014; Genishi & Dyson, 2014; Bodrova & Leong, 2018; Suggate, Stoeger, & Pufke, 2017) make the existence and implementation of play a necessity within early childhood setting. Play for children is a natural way of exploring the world, experimenting their abilities, interacting with others, being successful while also failing, thus we ought to be aware of all these possibilities and be able to appropriately provide for children.

Teacher Involvement

Moreover, we consider teacher involvement in children’s play crucial, in order for teachers to be able to support children in developing advanced play skills and moving toward mature play. The dilemma of teacher involvement refers to how teachers should participate in children’s play, in order for their involvement to be effective and appropriate. We believe that excessive involvement can detract from children’s play experiences, and on the other hand no involvement can miss important opportunities to guide children in play. Trawick-Smith and Dziurgot (2010, 2011) refer to good-fit intervention highlighting the importance of observing children’s play, then reflecting on those behaviors and considering the most appropriate actions to take in order to best support their play development. There is research that distinguishes between the different roles teachers and the multiple ways teachers can employ in participating in children’s play. These include teachers being co-players, directors, facilitators, observers or using creative drama, narratives and stories in their play participation (Jones & Reynolds, 2011; Loizou, Michaelides, & Georgiou, 2019; Loizou, 2017; Loizou & Michaelides, 2020; Hakkarainen, Brėdikytė, Jakkula, & Munter, 2013; Hakkarainen & Bredikyte, 2014). In order for teachers to effectively participate in children’s play, they need to have the appropriate mentality, beliefs, skills, and knowledge. Both teacher education and professional development programs need to consider wisely the ways they educate and train teachers, in order to give them the tools to be able to participate in children’s play in the best possible ways.

The collection of chapters in this book highlight and acknowledge the importance of supporting teachers in developing play pedagogy and illuminate the ways we can support them. These chapters also highlight how classroom play approaches, and ways teachers can be prepared to implement them, are influenced by the unique perspectives and policies of different countries. The chapters are divided into two sections: (1) Teacher education for play pedagogy and (2) A Theoretical and Practical Lens of Teacher Authentic Play Practices. The details of each chapter are provided below.

Part 1: Teacher Education for Play Pedagogy

In the selection of these chapters we note the different ways the authors from around the world propose in supporting pre-service and/or in-service teachers to develop play pedagogy and become play pedagogues. The descriptions of course activities, the use of action research, teacher and assessment tools, coaching, videos, mentoring and reflective sessions are part of a vast display of teacher education recommendations.

Lemay, Parent, Bouchard, Duval, and Monitminy, in Chapter 2, base their work on research and observation in early childhood classrooms in Quebec, Canada, where one important type of play—make believe—is emphasized. They note that, even though play is valued in Canadian schools, active and effective teacher support of play needs to be enhanced. A focus of their chapter, then, is not only on how to increase play in classrooms but on how to guide teachers to effectively foster mature levels of make believe in their students. With the use of the Mature Play Observation Tool, the authors discuss the assessment of children’s make believe maturity level with teachers.

Maron-Puntarelli, in Chapter 3, argues for greater support for teachers to implement play pedagogy at a time when early childhood education in the U.S. is drifting toward more direct teacher instruction. She describes an approach to teacher education that guides teachers in pushing back on trends toward less play in schools and fosters their positive dispositions toward and commitment to play pedagogy in American classrooms. She provides a detailed description of her undergraduate course on play highlighting the important constituents (e.g. play-based methods, hands-on experiences, pretend play, materials and toys) of such a course and how these are related to what is necessary for pre-service teachers to know and be able to do, in order to implement play practices.

Han, Buell, Liu, and Pic, in Chapter 4, address another challenge to play pedagogy that is common in early childhood programs in the U.S.—a lack of professional development opportunities for inservice teachers in child development centers. They note that various paths to teacher education do not always provide strong skills in play pedagogy. Too, community-based child development programs may have only sporadic access to training of any kind. In their chapter, they introduce a professional development model implemented in the U.S. in order to highlight the importance of training teachers to become play pedagogues while accomplishing their learning and development goals.

Pramling, in Chapter 5, presents a Swedish perspective on the theory of play-responsive teaching and elaborates on how to train teachers to be able to work within this framework. His work reflects an ongoing debate in Sweden and other countries between those advocating for academic learning in separate subject areas and those who argue for a broad theme-based method of learning that includes play. He highlights the importance of elaborating and articulating a theory of play and play pedagogy that challenges trends in Sweden toward less developmentally appropriate academic learning.

Avgitidou, in Chapter 6, provides us with a professional development program format which supports early childhood teachers in their play pedagogy in Greece, where play in early childhood education is highly valued, and has been part of the classroom curriculum for several decades. Both free play and more structured play experiences are emphasized in Greek classrooms. So, this program prepares teachers to support play in both settings. It follows a praxeological paradigm, in which teachers are actively involved in discussing, reflecting, and unfolding their own play pedagogy and play practices through the development of a community of leaners.

Chapter 7 by Veraksa, Veraksa, Gavrilova, Bukhalenkova, and Sukhikh is fully grounded in the Russian psychological traditions of Vygotsky and his colleagues. They highlight the importance of scaffolding of children’s play by older, expert, or adult players. Since they estimate that 65% of young Russian children engage play with digital devices, they examine how we can prepare teachers to support children’s digital play and incorporate it to the curriculum just like the other types of play.

Part 2: A Theoretical and Practical Lens of Teacher Authentic Play Practices

In this section, the authors unfold the multiple ways teachers act as play pedagogues and implement play in order to best support children’s play development and learning. With the use of examples from praxis and the teachers’ own words, the classroom play world is enacted within the cultural and country context of each chapter.

Chapter 8 by Vancraeyveldt, Barros Araújo, Boland, Ferreira, Grofčíková, Klimentova, and Oenema presents a multinational perspective on the value of play as a fundamental activity for enhancing teacher-child relationships. They highlight some differences but many similarities in teacher beliefs and practices regarding play across several countries. They describe an approach which supports teacher-child relationship building in play titled Playing-2-gether. They specifically explain how teachers learn to develop the skills to play with the children while following their lead to improve their relationship and support their development.

Karlsson Lohmander and Pramling Samuelsson present, in Chapter 9, how play has long been a fundamental element in the Swedish preschool curriculum. In spite of a new interest on subject matter learning in their country, the authors note that play remains a critical part of the Swedish national early childhood curriculum. However, the authors note that Swedish educators lie along a continuum in their beliefs about the degree of teacher involvement in play. Likewise, they feel that the extent of training in play pedagogy varies in teacher education. Their chapter offers specific details of the teacher education of preschool teachers in Sweden in reference to play and then bring out the beliefs of preschool teachers in implementing play practices.

Guirguis and Longley, in Chapter 10, highlight the threats to classroom play that have arisen in the U.S. through an accountability and high-stakes testing movement that has found its way into the early childhood education classroom. They raise concerns about the deteriorating value placed on play by teachers in the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part 1 Teacher Education for Play Pedagogy
• Part 2 A Theoretical and Practical Lens of Teacher Authentic Play Practices
• Index