Critical Summary- Play-based Curriculum

For the critical summary assignment, I decided I was going to focus on Margaret Macintyre Latta. Margaret focuses on aesthetic education but to narrow it down, I decided to focus on her topics regarding play within the curriculum. I find this an interesting topic as I have never heard of play-based curriculum outside of the physical education curriculum. 

In researching Margaret Latta, I came across one of her articles "Accessing the Curricular Play of Critical and Creative Thinking". This article focuses on the importance of aesthetic education, in particular, play. Within the article it is mentioned that it is the educators curricular task to draw students into the depth and complexity of learning across all subject areas, in doing this, critical and creative thinking is necessary. Latta, Hanson, Ragoonaden, Briggs and Middleton (2017) suggest that "too often , the critical-creative shaping of students inquiries is apt to be thwarted and even denied in classrooms" (pg.194). Play is understood as fundamental to all learners and learning as it is valued in social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development. It is made evident throughout the article that play is significant within education. Play based approaches within curriculum encourage learners to take time to explore in depth connections, take ownership for their ideas, examine alternatives and develop understandings that each learner can take pride in.

Within the article it mentions how important it is to "heighten educators attention towards the learning possibilities and powers within curricula" (pg. 196). As it mentions the significance of play in the classroom it is also noted how it is necessary to familiarize educators understanding of play based curriculum. It speaks on the struggle to reframe education as there is resistance and hesitance involved in the rethinking of curriculum from the educators being introduced to aesthetic education. 

My next steps for this assignment is to find two more pieces of writing related to play-based curriculum and draw connections along with differences from each of them. I would also like to find an article that provides educators clear examples of ways to incorporate play within the classroom. I will look for ways each of the authors define the concept, and how they are similar and different.  In finding similarities, I can enrich my understandings, along with my audiences understanding of play-based curriculum. 


Reference: 

Margaret Macintyre Latta, Kelly Hanson, Karen Ragoonaden, Wendy Briggs, & Tamalee Middleton. (2017). Accessing the Curricular Play of Critical and Creative Thinking. Canadian Journal of Education, 40(3), 191-218.


Comments

  1. Alaina MajewskiSeptember 28, 2020 at 1:53 PM

    Hi Alexandra, thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I appreciate your insight that play-based curriculum encourages students to take ownership of their ideas and understandings. It is important for students to take pride in their accomplishments, as you aptly stated. You quoted scholars as saying, "too often, the critical-creative shaping of students inquiries is apt to be thwarted and even denied in classrooms.” Have you considered that inquiry and play may be great things to strive for but they eat up a lot of time to cover little of the required curriculum, which teachers are pressured to cover? Perhaps a next step for you might be looking at ways to resolve this dissonance. You say “it is necessary to familiarize educators understanding of play-based curriculum.” I agree with this as by helping teachers understand how play-based curriculum can be included effectively, it can be another valuable tool in a teacher’s toolbox. This is certainly true when it comes to engagement of students.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Citizenship and the Curriculum

In my schooling, the main focus was creating a personally responsible citizen, to be a functioning part of society. I was taught to be personally responsible as my elementary schools motto was the "3R's: responsible, respectful and ready". Students were expected to be responsible, be respectful and be ready while being honest, obeying the rules and using our manners. I remember an emphasis on learning how to recycle, taking part in walks around the school yard picking up litter, as well as donating non-perishables to the local food drive. In high school there was a slight shift in citizenship as it became more of a focus of participatory citizenship. There was more of an emphasis on the students taking the leadership roles through organization of school fundraisers for things like sports teams, dances and graduation.  Having most of my school experiences focus on the personally responsible citizen I was never really taught to push for change, or made aware that change was...
Read more

Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Place-based Education

Knowing that I will have a diverse group of students within my future classrooms, it is my responsibility to provide positive learning experiences that include every one of my students. As Lopez (2011) states: "diverse student populations are now one of the distinct features of schools in North America"(p. 90). Meaning, as educators we have to be aware of the diversity within our classrooms and integrate multiple forms of knowledge and perspectives into our lessons to ensure learning is relevant to students' lives and experiences. The importance of culturally relevant pedagogy is that it is an effective way to focus on the cultures, languages, and experiences that diverse students bring to classrooms to increase their engagement and academic achievement. In doing this, "students will learn to be critical, understand each other, and appreciate other forms of knowledge"(Lopez, 2011, p.75). I hope culturally relevant pedagogy for me will be researching different cu...
Read more

Critical Hip Hop Pedagogy

Before the Akom reading, I had never given much thought to how valuable hip hop could be within the classroom. Akom insists that hip hop can be used as a tool to illuminate current issues of poverty, police brutality, patriarchy, misogyny, incarceration, racial discrimination, as well as love, hope, and joy. Not only does this approach to teaching social justice challenge the typical classroom practices, but it engages students by producing more justice-oriented citizens. The goal of integrating critical hip hop pedagogy is for students to develop meaningful strategies to fight for social justice and take on roles of advocating within their community. Not only does this encourage students to use critical thinking, reflection, analysis, and action with a social justice lens, it engages students with music, something kids care about . It is argued that Hip Hop is a valuable tool we can use to introduce youth to social justice issues as "Hip Hop is the dominant language of youth cult...
Read more