TLS Mini-Series: All Work and No Play? The Classroom Is/As Play

Facilitators: 
Jennifer Ross, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Woodsworth College
Erin K. Vearncombe, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Institute for the Study of University Pedagogy, UTM

“Play” and “work” appear as opposites: work is conceptualized as rigorous, accomplishment-oriented activity whereas play appears as unstructured activity for its own sake, a voluntary behaviour directed at personal enjoyment. Scholarship on play in education, however, shifts our perspective such that neat divisions between work and play are constructively blurred. Koops and Taggart, for example, view play “as activities and dispositions that allow for trying out ideas without immediate judgment or evaluation, increasing enjoyment or flow, and fostering creativity in a safe environment” (2011). Although similar to active-learning, play emphasizes the development of core academic behaviours such as curiosity, experimentation, resilience, and adaptive problem-solving while foregrounding low stakes exploration.  

In reframing the classroom as play, this interactive workshop seeks to empower instructors with methods of addressing the challenges shaping higher education today, including anxiety, depression, structural inequities, classroom absence, and burnout. Emphasizing learning through play is particularly important as both learners and educators struggle to rekindle curiosity and joy after a grueling pandemic. This workshop invites participants to connect with both research and each other as we engage recent scholarship on play and learning in higher education. Shifting between play, reading, and discussion we facilitate a puckish and critically engaged learning period centering on the pedagogical value of curiosity. Attendees will participate in analog and digital techniques for grounding learning through play, including movement, art, collaboration, and gamification. By imagining the classroom as play, participants will leave curious about their own instructional processes and eager to experiment with play across our diverse teaching contexts.