This study investigated whether two educational strategies, providing material and active adult support during play, promote pretend play quality in a group of preschoolers. The sample consisted of 101 preschoolers (50% females; mean age at t1= 43.02 months, SD= 5.94) from 14 Swiss educational play groups. These were randomly allocated to the…

Pretend play leads to real-life learning. By imitating a firefighter using a horse, a doctor checking a patient's ear, or a construction worker building a skyscraper, children learn about community roles and services and feel proud and satisfied. When they pretend, children create pictures in their minds of past experiences and use their…

Imagining what it was like to live in the past may help secondary school students to understand historical developments and situations. In this case study, the opportunities of a drama task are explored by using a mixed-method approach. In small groups, Dutch 14-15-year-old students examined historical sources and produced a short film clip on…

The article discusses two versions of a complex role-playing exercise in undergraduate courses on Buddhism. The pedagogical exercise demonstrated how imagination cultivated through creative writing could be used to enhance learning about history, culture, and religion. Students were also challenged to generate an understanding of religious…

We explore our experiences with roleplaying games across learning environments, chasing communal questions such as: how can teachers engage with the possibilities of roleplaying in classroom spaces, and how can we leverage such practices to open up spaces for youth to bodily experience texts, express identities, and imagine new worlds? This…

Purpose: Japanese school teachers are facing challenges under the new curricula reform, and there is still a lack of preparation to guide them to a successful implementation. Dilemmas related to teaching English language in primary schools were seen among participant teachers in a program of professional learning. This study aims (1) to identify a…

Preservice music teachers may devalue play as a teaching approach unless music teacher educators reintroduce them to play through role-playing, cooperative games, and other playful activities. I designed a 4-week unit on play as part of an elementary general music methods course. Student participants engaged in, reflected on, and planned play…

The digital economy and the global pandemic, together with the effects of climate change, have taken a human toll affecting the pace of everyday life, creating an exponential increase in anxiety and stress related diseases. Today's complex, globalised world creates a need to challenge and reconceptualise educational priorities. In an increasingly…

Recent efforts to define qualities of effective teaching practice have done little to capture the role of play, imagination, and creativity in classroom teaching. Drawing on theories of play and data from a two-year case study that included classroom observations, interviews, artifact collection, and surveys, the author examines the ways in which…

The purpose of this dissertation study was to explore the professional preparation of students in online classes at a Christian theological seminary. Concerns of theological education involve the capacity or incapacity of community development and somatic or embodied learning in online education. Using a theoretical framework drawn from…

There are hundreds of ways to develop creativity among children, youths and adults. Developing new ideas and ways of teaching creativity should also incorporate youth's interests and hobbies. The article presents the main information about the new way of developing creative abilities, especially creative imagination, the Role Play Training in…

This article introduces a sociology role-playing game (RPG) used to demonstrate the broad range of social forces, institutions, and structures in a semester-long series of in-class and homework assignments. RPGs and other simulation games have been frequently suggested as a useful teaching methodology because of their unique ability to allow…

Role-play is one of the most engaging instruments for imagining what is not actually present. Role-play can take a variety of forms: student(s) enacting; teacher(s) enacting; and student(s) and teacher(s) enacting together. In this article, the author examines a number of different ways for teachers to incorporate role-play in their classrooms to…

Outlines debriefing strategies to help students organize, compare, classify, evaluate, summarize, or analyze an experience and determine its meaning. Discusses several possible activities leading to increased understanding, including writing logs, diaries, or summaries, naming themes, imagining alternatives, evaluating, role-playing, drawing,…

Background: In 2000 the so-called "Reception" class was re-conceived (in curricular terms, at least) as the second and final year of the Foundation Stage, a distinctive educational phase for children aged 3 until entry to key stage 1 at 5 or 6 years old. The "Curriculum guidance for the Foundation Stage" endorses a play-based,…