Playing with a goal in mind: exploring the enactment of guided play in Canadian and South African early years classrooms

Abstract

Guided play, a balanced approach to involvement in play that includes child-and adult-direction in learning activities, holds great promise for children's effective and engaged learning in education. Recent studies in laboratory settings show benefits for academic and socio-emotional outcomes, while retaining a focus on child-centred exploration. Often, these studies feature an experimenter with one child or a small group. In contrast, educators in early years classrooms often need to support 20 children or more. To realise guided play's promise, we need to explore the enactment of guided play in classroom settings, and how educators can engage young children in responsive ways to promote opportunities to learn in play contexts. We offer a cross-cultural comparison of guided play that occurred in 12 Canadian and 8 South African early years classrooms. Using a qualitative, thematic approach, we analysed video-recorded observations for: 1) the frequency of educator involvement in play contexts, 2) the role of the educator in those contexts, and 3) learning opportunities that emerged due to this involvement. Based on our analysis, we consider how educators can achieve guided play in classroom settings. Implications are discussed for practice, including barriers and enablers of guided play in culturally diverse settings.

The use of play in English as a foreign language classrooms: Chinese teachers’ perspectives

“…Teachers’ sharing from this study might shed light on the complex situation that EFL teachers are likely to encounter in their classrooms. According to the perspectives and practices of teachers from the present study and previous studies (Bubikova-Moan et al, 2019; Fung & Cheng, 2012; Jensen et al, 2021, etc. ), there seems to be a gap in what researchers are trying out or recommending to teachers and what teachers are doing in the classroom, as well as a gap in what western play belief is and what eastern play perception is.…”

“…No matter play or play-based learning, the inconsistency between theory and practices is identified by many studies (Bubikova-Moan et al, 2019; Fung & Cheng, 2012; Jensen et al, 2021; Vorkapic & Katic, 2015). Reasons are multilayered: pressure to meet the academic goal set by school and government; parents’ concerns about play; the challenges regarding class size and time; children’s unreadiness in play and teachers’ lack of knowledge of play pedagogies (Bubikova-Moan et al, 2019).…”

What counts as learning in play? Uncovering patterns in perceptions of South African early educators

“…This entails responsivity, meaning educators tune into children's states of being in play, and intentionally meet learning goals without disrupting children's playful experience (e.g. Jensen et al 2019).…”

Fidelity of Implementation: Where Research Meets Practice in the Wesleyan Preschool Math Games

“…Most of the guided play research includes experimental manipulation, and very few have attempted to measure natural guided play interactions in the classroom. One study coded a recorded play session as guided play if the adult were involved in the play scenario, the child had autonomy in the play activity, and the adult extended the play beyond what would have occurred without their presence (Jensen et al, 2019). In another study through recorded classroom observations, five types of play were identified: free play, inquiry play, collaboratively created play, playful learning, and learning through games.…”

“…Both play and guided play can be hard to observe systematically, partly due to the wide range of definitions for both concepts. The limited research that has been conducted in more naturalistic settings, such as the classroom, tend to not publish their coding frameworks or describe them in detail (Pyle & Danniels, 2017;Wickstrom et al, 2019;Jensen et al, 2019). Previous research in laboratory settings has focused on coding adult language for math talk and their use of questions (Eason & Ramani, 2020;Linder & Emerson, 2019).…”