Playposium 2021 Schedule
8:15 – 8:45 am
The Playvolution
Manifesto
Lisa Forbes and David Thomas
Welcome to the Playvolution! Are you ready to have fun? Let’s get started with a big, interactive ice breaker! Don’t worry, no dancing or singing is required.
8:45 – 8:55
Overview of the Day and Prizes!
Get ready for some fun and prizes! Yes, even virtually!
8:55 – 10:00am
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Pat Kane, The Play Ethic
Author, researcher, musician, journalist and play advocate Pat Kane joins us to describe the idea of a “play ethic.” He will provide a series of provocations about play in culture, challenge the group as educators and move into a discussion of how and why play can change the world. Pat wrote The Play Ethic in 2004, and now speaks and consults globally on creativity, innovation and the power of play. Pat has also co-founded a national newspaper (Sunday Herald), as well as various civic and political platforms (CommonWeal, Yes Scotland, and recently The Alternative UK). From 2012-20, Pat has been lead curating FutureFest for the innovation foundation Nesta; and in 2020-21, he designed the R&D process for Festival UK*2022.
10:00 – 10:30am
Personal Pointless Projects:
Or how to feed your playful soul
David Thomas
How do you become a playful professor? It starts with being a playful person. Here’s a quick and interactive intro to the simple, and sometimes silly, things you can do to make play a part of your everyday life.
10:30 – 10:45
Technique Talk 1:
Snouts and Tails
Perle Zhitnitskiy
Snouts and Tails is a board game used with fourth-year veterinary students during their clinical year. The objective of the board game is to review the course information in a fun way and to go one step further by applying it to clinical situations.
10:45 – 11:00am
Technique Talk 2
Zoom Goldberg Machine
Brad Hinson
See how a Digital Storytelling Class chose to do an addendum class project in which they simulated a Rube Goldberg Machine on Zoom. Students were invited to record their own contraption at home, show themselves or not, and to try use common household items. Many incorporated family and pets. Videos were submitted and edited to produce our Zoom Goldberg Machine project.
11:00 – 11:30am
What is the Value of Play?
Alison James
Find your playful purpose in this interactive activity!
Alison James is a Professor, National Teaching Fellow, Principal Fellow of the HEA and accredited LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facilitator. She is also a speaker-writer-adviser-workshopper on things HE and an experienced professional coach. She co-auhtored Engaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective Thinker and published The Power of Play: Creativity in Tertiary Learning, a tome collecting over 40 examples of play in higher education.
Session Detail
Well, goodness. What a question.
Over decades, if not centuries, play theorists have sought to define the value of play with arguments and information coloured by their specific context. While their views may have common ground they also point up features that are particularly relevant for their subjects, situations, evidence base and beliefs. Our own feelings about why play is valuable will similarly be infused (even subconsciously) with any combination of influences. These will articulate the value of play in a way that means something to us. While such influences, among them disciplinary, institutional, national, educational, cultural and societal, may conjoin with our own personal values, they may also butt up against them.
Back in 1997 the psychologist and play guru Brian Sutton-Smith distilled 40 years of his own research on play into Seven Rhetorics: Fate, Power, Progress, Identity, The Self, The Imaginary and Frivolity. He used the term rhetoric to denote a ‘persuasive discourse’ something that we use to convince others of the truth of our beliefs. He argued that depending on our contexts, disciplines and allegiances, we are likely to perceive the value of play differently.
An important thing to note here is that he presents these Rhetorics of play as the views of specific groups of advocates. He does not endorse any of them as the right or only narrative, as the title of his book The Ambiguity of Play and his own description of them as ‘tendentious’, among other things, make manifest. What he does do is provide the historical, theoretical and disciplinary beliefs upon which each ‘persuasive discourse’ is based, while also challenging these.
So what relevance does this have for higher education? I believe a huge amount. As persuasive discourses the Rhetorics are all about value. Sutton-Smith did not explore the Rhetorics in relation to university learning, however my play research over the last two years reveals that many, if not all, our playful practices in HE can link to one or more Rhetorics. Not only that, but my study has gathered strong views about how use of play in HE also links up to our own values as educators. Through our playful educational practices we express our academic identity and our aspirations for our students. We hope that our values will resonate closely with our subjects and our educational worlds. They often do. However, at other times we find ourselves at odds with the disciplinary, institutional, or wider climate. An example is when our use of play is belittled or dismissed by those who feel it has no place in a university setting.
So in this session, we will consider aspects of the Rhetorics in relation to our own perceptions of value and reflect on how we might use their theoretical heft to respond to the naysayers of play.
P.S. How are we going to do all of this in 30 minutes? Honestly? No idea. But we will have a go, and whatever start we make you can build on afterwards.
P.P.S. If you’d like to join me can you bring along seven objects which for you embody Fate, Power, Progress, Identity, The Self, The Imaginary and Frivolity.
11:30 am – Noon
A Playful Lunch
Time for a break and a chance to win prizes!
Noon- 1:00 pm
Games, learning, social transformation and change!
Kat Schrier, Associate Professor and Director of the Games & Emerging Media program at Marist College
Game designer, producer, and educator Dr. Kat Schrier will address how we repair a world in crisis through play and games. In this interactive workshop and talk, we will explore games that help us to enhance empathy and compassion by utilizing playful activities that help us to connect. Kat will show you how to create your own (simple) games as well. Dr. Schrier consults as a Game Designer for the World Health Organization (WHO) and she has worked at Scholastic, BrainPOP, and Nickelodeon. Dr. Schrier is the author/editor of over 100 published works, including We the Gamers: How Games Teach Ethics and Civics, the Learning, Education & Games series, and Knowledge Games.
1:00 – 1:30pm
Pirates!
Keith Miller, Associate Professor in Chemistry and Associate Provost, Graduate Education, University of Denver
What started as a freshman honors seminar in science education quickly became a swashbuckling adventure in how to teach and learn. And yes, it all has to do with pirates. Find out how play can enliven an entire class and inspire students to achieve and learn.
1:30 – 1:45 pm
Pirates, Princesses, Monsters and Bigfoot
Are you ready to envision your whole class play makeover? This quick hit activity challenges you to find your inspiration and reinvent your class.
1:45 – 2:00 pm
Technique Talk 4:
Stump the Professor
Mary Eilene Wollslager
STP (Stump the Professor) works like this: students attempt to stump the professor by creating their own test questions to then test the professor! Any questions missed by the professor provide extra credit for students! Come learn more about this playful technique that turns testing upside down.
2:00 – 2:15 pm
Technique Talk 5:
The Magic Instructor’s Card Trick
Julie Stephens DeJonge
Use this card trick and connection forming activity to capture attention, add surprise, and increase a sense of community to reinforce or practice course concepts, ideas, or terms.
2:15 – 2:45 pm
You Done With That?
Sure, play matters. But what are you going to do next? Let’s turn these ideas into action.
2:45 – 3:00 pm
Closing Ceremony
Ready for some more prizes?