In this conceptual article, we propose a new approach to investigating changeable factors in teaching. Using a constructivist approach as a conceptual framework, we argue for investigating changeable factors recognizing their malleability and suggest studying teaching as a set of natural experiments. Methodologically, we propose an abductive…

The value and importance of play for children's well-being, learning and development is evidenced by its inclusion within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and its increased policy and research presence on a national and international stage. However, with a need for educators and pupils to navigate a range of implicit tensions in…

Dialogic educators have designed strategies to facilitate dialogic teaching, such as establishing ground rules, employing talk moves, and structuring discussions. Though productive, such strategies rarely open dialogic space, in which shared meaning is created through an interaction that blurs the boundaries between participating voices. Dialogic…

This article explores the usefulness of detective role-play as a research method to facilitate young children's critical thinking. The study examines four specifically designed detective play experiences, adopting an ethical rights-based approach to research with children. This qualitative multiple-case study is grounded in play-based pedagogy…

This study explores the relationship between play-based learning and achievement in mathematics in Palestinian elementary school children. Forty teachers from eight schools received training in play-based pedagogies and follow-up support visits from programme staff (intervention group); four matched schools served as the control group.…

The author examines guided play among students in a South African classroom using a play-and-write workshop constructed by her and her students. She determines that the workshop displays the characteristics of playful learning, lies on the playful learning spectrum, and fits the criteria for guided play. She concludes that, given the benefits of…

In the 21st Century, it has become more difficult for teachers to attract students to the curriculum due to many factors that entertain students. Hence, teachers need to think about teaching methods that indirectly motivate students to learn. Moreover, this need is more felt in mathematics because it requires the constant creation of new cognitive…

Presently, in Malta, syllabi are being replaced by learning outcomes. For ages 3-7, the outcomes are framed holistically (e.g. identity, communication, etc.), and it is recommended that children learn mathematics informally through play and projects. For ages 8-11, learning outcomes are subject-based, and new mathematics textbooks are being phased…

This study tested a novel approach to capitalizing on the benefits of play for informal math learning. Two experiments evaluated a platform called "Fraction Ball," that provides an embodied, playful, and physically active learning experience by modifying the lines on a basketball court to support rational number learning. In the Pilot…

A contributing factor to the loss of play in many early childhood classrooms is a sharp separation between literacy learning as serious, even urgent, academic work and play as optional, socially-beneficial-at-best, fun. To recenter play in the academic curriculum, early childhood educators must not only demonstrate how play benefits the existing…

Underpinning drama education in New Zealand is the desire to improve the lives of individuals, communities and societies by catalysing embodied learning in and through the art form of theatre. Learning in drama is intended to foster well-being, social cohesion and active citizenship. Put another way, drama education in New Zealand has always been…

Building from the concept of verbing mathematics as a culturally consistent and enabling mathematics education practice for Mi'kmaw learners, the authors present an elementary multiplication lesson affectionately named "Sets of, Rows of, Jumps of". Through examination of this specific set of tasks emerging notions of structuring, play,…

A wide variety of activities, instructional teaching styles and physical activity for health characterise PE practices today. However, for children, PE is about more than performing activities or being physically active for health. Children experience moving in the context of PE in varying and ambivalent ways, which indicates that qualitative…

Although scholars have researched Chinese parents' perspectives on play pedagogy, few investigate the differences between parents of preschoolers and early primary schoolers, non-immigrant and immigrant parents. The present study employs the theoretical framework of parental ethnotheories to describe parental understanding and concerns about the…

Students used inquiry to invest folklore in their community. As part of the C3 inquiry arc students defined questions, connected folklore to a discipline, gathered data from their community and communicated information. Students' agency drove each of the projects as the students determined how much they would investigate each topic. Students…