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

Abstract

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.

Trends, tensions, and futures of maker education research: a 2025 vision for STEM+ disciplinary and transdisciplinary spaces for learning through making

“…Papert's theory of Constructionism asserts that people construct knowledge when they design, build, and share their own meaningful artifacts (Morado, 2021;Papert, 1991). That is why researchers subscribing to the maker culture and maker movement place emphasis on studying learning and skill development via making, tinkering, coding, and play (Gravel et al, 2022;Honey, 2013;Martinez & Stager, 2013;Timotheou & Ioannou, 2019a, 2019b. These orientations embrace digital fabrication, technology, and computing aiming to integrate the tools, practices, and mindsets of maker learning into curricular enactments, typically to promote STEM or STEAM practices (e.g., Gravel & Puckett, 2023;Timotheou & Ioannou, 2021a, 2021b.…”

“…One specific sight of considerable dissonance is the transition from K12 environments into more formalized university-level STEM learning contexts. It is becoming common that K12 students experience making in ways that are grounded, humanizing, and inspiring (Calabrese Barton & Tan, 2018;Gravel et al, 2022), only to discover those possibilities all but vanish in the higher-education spaces (with some notable exceptions: see Andrews et al, 2021; also https:// csed. engin.…”

Transdisciplinary Learning Based on Problem Identification of Design Computational Thinking - A Case Study of the Topic of Marine Debris

“…And design orientation does this by informing and influencing change through engaging practices. Examples of Computational, Gravel, Millner, Tucker-Raymond, Olivares, and Wagh (2022) Aiding understanding of transdisciplinary STEM learning through mapping games and lessons of computational fabrication. And in the humanities, Holmén, Adawi, and Holmberg (2021) pointed out that Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) conducts inter-and transdisciplinary learning processes by engaging students in real challenges of social actors and centers.…”

Video games lexicon included in Spanish language: a multiple case study

“…In a study on videogames on social networks carried out by Revuelta and Bernabé (2012), they establish the possibility that videogames can be brought to the ICT educational field due to their possibilities of accessing a mass audience; In addition, they allow rapid, cheap distribution and easy access, without representing a burden for the user, but passive learning. Similarly, Gravel et al (2022) understand that the STEM methodology, also based on computer games, allows students to learn transdisciplinary with a focus on remote professional preparation and understanding of a transdisciplinary environment.…”