Structured Play: Creating a Stimulating Education Product

Image from Lure of the Labyrinth
http://labyrinth.thinkport.org/

As a teacher, my science classrooms were always a rowdy mess. My students rarely stayed in their chairs for long and I avoid lecturing and textbooks like Yersinia pestis (a.k.a. the Plague). I never used the term with students or parents, but I thought of class and the room as a place for “structured play”. As teacher, I designed and facilitated opportunities for students to play with ideas, equipment, materials, and even their roles in an appropriate context.

By “structured play”, I mean that students engage in learning with the type and amount of energy that you see when they play. I do not think my observations or ideas are particularly unique. Most of us recognize that we learn well when we enjoy the topic, the environment, and our playmates. We also recognize the relationship between play and learning in the young of most species; who hasn’t seen this in baby mammals either on TV or in our own yards. Additionally, research on rats in laboratories demonstrates that those animals raised in a stimulating environment experience less stress.

How does this apply to developing and producing outstanding education materials? Well, some of the best educators I have worked with never forget what it is like to be a child. Not to say that they are immature, just that they recognize that children enjoy and learn from positive, stimulating, and playful environments. Therefore the products you develop, the programs you implement, or the learning environments you create should provide elements that encourage play and childlike curiosity.