Roles, Rules, and Keys: How Different Play Configurations Shape Collaborative Science Inquiry

DeLiema, David; Enyedy, Noel; Danish, Joshua A.

doi:10.1080/10508406.2019.1675071

Cited by 22 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…Our research team has previously demonstrated that STEP supported students in learning target science content (Danish et al, 2015), shown how different play structures in STEP supported collaborative learning (DeLiema et al, 2019), illustrated how STEP foregrounds the role of the body in student agency and sense making about science (Keifert et al, 2017;Keifert et al, 2020), and discussed the challenges associated with bringing mixed reality to formal K-12 educational settings (Keifert et al, 2017). However, prior analyses have not fully articulated how teachers pedagogically supported playful inquiry during STEP.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Though we saw improv as a framework consistently across the five lessons in the unit, we chose particular episodes from two lessons to pursue in depth for analysis here because Ms. Jones and her students were very playful during these episodes. Ms. Jones uniquely practiced playfulness with her students by remaining open to new ideas, being spontaneous, and working to sustain the playful roles of being bees throughout the activity (i.e., we noticed that in contrast to other STEP teachers who maintained their formal teacher roles, Ms. Jones entered the tracked space and interacted alongside the students as a fellow bee within the simulation (DeLiema et al, 2019)). She also remained playful throughout the STEP project by displaying joy and excitement as students played and explored as bees.…”

Section: Video Of Classroom Lessonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Instructional improv to analyze inquiry-based science teaching: Zed’s dead and the missing flower

Dahn

Lee

Enyedy

et al. 2021

Smart Learn. Environ.

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In inquiry-based science lessons teachers face the challenge of adhering to curricular goals while simultaneously following students’ intuitive understandings. Improvisation (improv) provides a useful frame for understanding teaching in these inquiry-based contexts. This paper builds from prior work that uses improv as a metaphor for teaching to present a translated model for analysis of teaching in an inquiry-based, elementary school science lesson context. We call our model instructional improv, which shows how a teacher spontaneously synthesizes rules of improv with teaching practices to support student learning, engagement, and agency. We illustrate instructional improv through case study analysis of video recorded classroom interactions with one teacher and 26 first and second grade students learning about the complex system of honey bee pollination in a mixed reality environment. Our model includes the following defining features to describe how teaching happens in this context: the teacher 1) tells a story; 2) reframes mistakes as opportunities; 3) agrees; 4) yes ands; 5) makes statements (or asks questions that elicit statements); and 6) puts the needs of the classroom ensemble over individuals. Overall, we show how instructional improv helps explain how teachers can support science discourse and collective storytelling as a teacher (a) shifts power and agency to students; (b) balances learning and agency; and (c) makes purposeful instructional decisions. Findings have immediate implications for researchers analyzing interactions in inquiry-based learning environments and potential future implications for teachers to support inquiry learning.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Video Of Classroom Lessonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Instructional improv to analyze inquiry-based science teaching: Zed’s dead and the missing flower

Dahn

Lee

Enyedy

et al. 2021

Smart Learn. Environ.

Self Cite

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“…One avenue for expanding notions of computation includes examining and designing for the intersection of play and computing, namely through the exploration of game environments (Berland & Lee, 2011;Clark et al, 2015;DeLiema et al, 2019) and through the development of playful computing paradigms (e.g., Gaskins, 2020Gaskins, , 2021Shapiro & Ahrens, 2016;Shapiro et al, 2017). Playful forms of gaming support learners in discovering and 1 In this paper, we use the term "sense-making" to reflect the varied, heterogeneous, and everyday practices learners use to "figure something out" (Odden & Russ, 2019, p. 192), and to connect to the literature exploring the ways this term can be used to describe learning.…”

Section: Background and Motivation: Integrating Stem And Computingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Weebles wobble but they also commit to lifelong relationships”: teachers’ transdisciplinary learning in computational play

et al. 2022

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Background Computational approaches in STEM foster creative extrapolations of ideas that extend the bounds of human perception, processing, and sense-making. Inviting teachers to explore computational approaches in STEM presents opportunities to examine shifting relationships to inquiry that support transdisciplinary learning in their classrooms. Similarly, play has long been acknowledged as activity that supports learners in taking risks, exploring the boundaries and configurations of existing structures, and imagining new possibilities. Yet, play is often overlooked as a crucial element of STEM learning, particularly for adolescents and adults. In this paper, we explore computational play as an activity that supports teachers’ transdisciplinary STEM learning. We build from an expansive notion of computational activity that involves jointly co-constructing and co-exploring rule-based systems in conversation with materials, collaborators, and communities to work towards jointly defined goals. We situate computation within STEM-rich making as a playful context for engaging in authentic, creative inquiry. Our research asks What are the characteristics of play and computation within computational play? And, in what ways does computational play contribute to teachers’ transdisciplinary learning? Results Teachers from grades 3–12 participated in a professional learning program that centered playful explorations of materials and tools using computational approaches: making objects based on rules that produce emergent behaviors and iterating on those rules to observe the effects on how the materials behaved. Using a case study and descriptions of the characteristics of computational play, our results show how familiarity of materials and the context of play encouraged teachers to engage in transdisciplinary inquiry, to ask questions about how materials behave, and to renegotiate their own relationships to disciplinary learning as they reflected on their work. Conclusions We argue computational play is a space of wonderment where iterative conversations with materials create opportunities for learners to author forms of transdisciplinary learning. Our results show how teachers and students can learn together in computational play, and we conclude this work can contribute to ongoing efforts in the design of professional and transdisciplinary learning environments focused on the intersections of materiality, play, and computation.

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“…As such, it provides a key moment to explore how parents' scaffolding impacts children's selfdetermination-a central concern of autonomy support. Second, children often use this high level of self-determination to challenge themselves, arriving autonomously at problems within their ZPD (Steen and Owens, 2001;Salen and Zimmerman, 2003;Kiili et al, 2012;DeLiema et al, 2019). This creates an ideal intersection of problem solving and learning, and when adults are present, a potential for autonomy-supportive teaching.…”

Section: Play and Naturalistic Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impasses in the wild: Autonomy support in naturalistic, parent-child outdoor play

Baker

DeLiema²,

Hufnagle³

et al. 2022

Front. Educ.

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Moments where children encounter problems in their chosen activities represent potentially generative sites for learning, particularly when supportive adults are present to scaffold the learning process. Scholars of autonomy support study these dyadic problem-solving processes in defined tasks, and describe specific types of parental support that have implications for children’s future competence as independent learners. In two exploratory case studies, we expand on the study of autonomy support by examining dyadic problem solving in naturalistic, outdoor family play. We apply a situated method of interaction analysis to perform a detailed, micro-longitudinal decomposition of two extended problem-solving arcs, identifying the specific contributions of parents and children. In doing so, we apply additional lenses of problem-solving, debugging, play-based learning, and intergenerational learning to develop a more comprehensive understanding of endogenous, dyadic problem solving. Our findings suggest the presence of inherent tradeoffs between various potential goals and time horizons for children’s learning and raise actionable considerations for both future research and practice in collaborative learning spaces.

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Roles, Rules, and Keys: How Different Play Configurations Shape Collaborative Science Inquiry

Cited by 22 publications

References 28 publications

Instructional improv to analyze inquiry-based science teaching: Zed’s dead and the missing flower

Instructional improv to analyze inquiry-based science teaching: Zed’s dead and the missing flower

“Weebles wobble but they also commit to lifelong relationships”: teachers’ transdisciplinary learning in computational play

Impasses in the wild: Autonomy support in naturalistic, parent-child outdoor play

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