The Playvolution

by | Jul 6, 2021 | Uncategorized

by David Thomas

The other day this popped up in a student assignment:

“I also agree when you spoke in the lecture about how there is ‘Play Shaming’ in education. I have always been told to never say ‘play, or playing with an iteration’ and instead use  ‘experiment, iterate, and explore’ since ‘play’ is not serious, and that architecture should be serious to be more creditable.”

 First, a little background. The class I teach is an online class called the Architecture of Fun. I teach architecture students about how to design more playfully and how to create more playful buildings. So, in one of my lectures, I was talking about the idea of design can benifit from a playful approach. My point was that they could use the principles from the class in more serious work—whether designing homes or shopping mall or hospitals. I also warned them that a lot of “serious” architects were pretty playful. But they didn’t often use the word “play” or even”fun”. They might use words like my student mentioned: iteration, experiments, explorations, experiments…the list goes on.

So, what surprised me to read this feedback from my student was that she was specifically being taught what I warned them about. Or as I shared the wisdom of Bernie Dekoven with the class:

“We have been taught to distrust play. Worse, we have been taught that we are not and should not be playful….”

 Here was confirmation from my students that they are, in fact,  taught not to play. It’s not an accident. They are being taught codewords to use to camouflage play. They are advised, in no uncertain terms, to be serious, even when play is the answer.

 I’m tempted to go into a rant about why there is so much ugly and non-functional architecture. But that would distract from the real concern here.

 Higher education is ashamed of play and as a result shames students who play. And unless we do something about it, the same depressing cycles of entitlement, radical individualism, lack of curiosity and dogmatic faith will continue. If higher education wants to continue to help students develop into empathic, curious and courageous citizens, then we need play. Through play we learn to take chances and risk vulnerability, we learn manners when playing with others, we embrace failure and celebrate success. We take the good with bad and value a smile after effort.

All of that is to say, what my student told me was why Professors at Play exists. We are here to change the world with the tools we have at hand as educators. We are here to play and teach others to play with us.

My Learning Disability Made Me Do It

by | Jun 8, 2021 | Uncategorized

by Lisa Forbes

Someone recently asked me: “what makes you a different kind of learner?”

I am a different kind of learner because I am a disabled learner. The way that formalized education approaches teaching and learning never worked very well for me. I struggled to learn for a very long time (and still struggle actually) in the way in which learning was forced on me in formalized education. I experienced learning as lacking engagement, creativity, and flexibility. I experienced it as valuing only certain forms of intelligence and excluding others. But what makes me a disabled learner also makes me an effective professor. I can’t say for certain but I believe I would approach teaching much differently if learning had always come easy to me. If listening to a lecture allowed me to soak in all the information. If reading a textbook was an easy way to remember the content. If taking tests was simple and a successful activity for me. Those things, which I consider typical aspects of traditional and formalized education, do not come easy to me and so I would never rely on those things to teach my students. I think my struggle with learning has helped me approach teaching in a way that steps outside of traditional modes of education. What makes me a different kind of learner has led me to value and utilize play in my teaching. 

Because I had, what I will call a traumatic past with education, I mostly believe that what I know isn’t all that profound, so lecturing never made much sense to me. As a faculty member, I have always been more interested in getting people connected, engaged, and co-creating knowledge. I have content expertise in my discipline and clinical experience to draw upon but in no way do I feel that I am the only human in the classroom that has all the valuable things to say. I believe in my students. I value their lived experiences and I think the learning is more impactful when it’s collective and social but also when it is personal to them. 

As a young academic, I was quickly bored with how I was “supposed” to teach – what had been modeled to me. What was “typical.” So, I spent a lot of time searching for more engaging approaches. Because my history with education as a learner was something that gave me stomach aches and low self-esteem, now as a faculty member, I have this desire for my students to enjoy class, to be highly engaged where they are energized, active, passionate, and feel like a valuable member in the learning community. I want all the humans in the classroom to be invested in the learning process – not just the knowledgeable instructor teaching passive and empty vessels. To find this magical approach that made students love learning, I searched in many places. I did my own research on pedagogy. I utilized our center for teaching and learning on my campus and consulted with their expertise. I looked into active learning approaches, socratic dialogues and discussions, and played around with ideas from Bloom’s Taxonomy. I had the director of the Center for Teaching and Learning to observe my teaching on multiple occasions to provide feedback. I asked for students’ feedback. All contained valuable lessons for me but nothing really made me feel excited or as though I had hit the nail on the head for what I was looking for exactly.

Then I found play..

I stumbled upon it, really. At first, I didn’t quite know that it held the answers to all the pedagogical problems I was trying to solve. To be honest, when I first started infusing play into my teaching, it was largely for me. Play fits better with my personality and it made me excited and energized to plan and teach classes. But I didn’t initially realize how impactful it would be for students too. This time, I quickly learned. 

I just received my students’ feedback in the university-administered Faculty Course Questionnaire that is sent out to students to collect feedback on the course and professor at the end of the semester. One student said:

“I have never learned more in any class from 5 years old to 30 years old. I was completely engaged, vulnerable, and finally feel what it may feel like to be a counselor.”

This feedback has little to do with me as an instructor. It has everything to do with play. I am just the person who values play and has the courage to bring it into my classrooms. Play is responsible for making learning so valuable. I am a person that believes everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that reason doesn’t reveal itself right away. In this case, my traumatic history with being a disabled learner has negatively impacted me in many ways and has been a long, hard journey if I’m honest. But I am starting to see why I went through all of that. I can see how it gave me a different perspective about learning and I can see how it has led me to find a different approach to teaching that lives outside of the status quo. Maybe, if it wasn’t for my learning disability, I wouldn’t have found play.

My learning disability made me do it…

#WePlayChat

by | Feb 25, 2021 | Uncategorized

The Future is Fun

by | Jan 15, 2021 | Uncategorized

The Future is Funby David Thomas

What is holding you back from playing? In our experience, lots of professors want to play. But many don’t because they are held back by their fears. During the 2021 Shaping EDU conference, Lisa and I explored the things that hold us back from implmenting all the benefits that play can offer to our teaching. I call those barriers the “fun wall”. Lisa likes to talk about fear and shame. But whatever you call it, you have to get out of the serious mode of thought we are all trained in to start thinking about your teaching in a new way.

Check out the recording of the workshop to see how the group tackedl this important topic!