The Conceptual PlayLab is again officially open for 2021! We spent the summer focusing on analysing our research data, writing research papers, planning our study designs, and organising cameras and other equipment. We have many things to celebrate:
- three of our PhD students, Gilly, Sharon, and Ha achieved their Confirmation milestone in February,
- Tanya and Kulsum passed their Final milestone,
- Ade officially finished her PhD,
- Marilyn and Tanya's article is featured in the first ever issue of STEM|ED magazine,
- Marilyn's article is featured in the second issue of STEM|ED magazine, and
- We welcome Dr. Fatema Taj Johora to our Conceptual PlayLab team!
We have also been working on our free self-paced online professional development for early childhood educators to understand and implement a Conceptual PlayWorld.
Self-paced online professional development is launched!
The free course includes video examples and starter kits that support educators working in the early years - from infants to school children.
It's an ambitious project, and we look to support more than 3000 educators to bring our proven play-based model to Australian children.
By taking part, you will be contributing to Australia's largest ever study in STEM and early childhood education.
If you want to find our more, watch our promotional video. The course will be released on 3rd May, please register via this registration link or check our website.
Gillian, Sharon and Ha achieved their Confirmation milestone
Three of our PhD students, Gillian O'Connor, Sharon McCormack, and Ha Dang all passed their Confirmation milestone with flying colours in February this year.
Gilly’s research is part of Pillar 1 which explores the development of children’s STEM thinking as they transition from infants to toddlers and later pre-schoolers. Gilly’s study focuses specifically on Science concept formation as it occurs across the infancy-toddlerhood period. Allowing us to map the onset of children’s pathways in Science, her research will make significant contributions to our understanding of a crucial area of science education research that has yet to be explored.
Sharon's research project is situated in Pillar 2 and she will be conducting research to investigate children’s learning of STEM concepts in home settings through the implementation of Conceptual PlayWorlds for Families interventions. Within the research project, Conceptual PlayWorlds will be implemented online on the social media platform of Facebook in closed groups with families. The research aims to examine the ways family support children’s STEM learning within home settings and new practice traditions created through the use of digital technologies and tools that support children’s play, learning and development within home settings.
Ha's research is a collaboration between Monash Engineering and the PlayLab. She is interested in investigating how families can provide the conditions that support the development of spatial reasoning skills, which are correlated with participation and success in STEM, especially engineering. Her research will contribute towards efforts to increase engineering participation overall, and address the gender imbalance in engineering.
The first PhD student from the PlayLab to complete their final milestone
Kulsum Chishti Yonzon is the first PhD student from the Conceptual PlayLab to complete the final milestone of her doctoral research. Her passion is using play-based pedagogies for children’s learning and development in early years. Kulsum’s research aims to understand the process of toddlers’ micro-genetic transitions into imaginary play and learning of science concepts. Coming from Nepal, Kulsum has enormous enthusiasm and over the years she has evolved in her theoretical understanding of cultural-historical concepts and STEM learning in early years. At PlayLab she feels supported and a sense of community and belongingness in her long and rewarding PhD journey. Her research advocates the importance of early childhood education and especially teaching of science concepts using play-based pedagogy.
Hungry for STEM ideas
.. is Marilyn and Tanya's article in the first STEM|ED magazine, published in February. The article presents a case study of an early childhood teacher, Kathy, who set up a number of Conceptual PlayWorlds after participating in the PlayLab's free professional development program. Kathy noticed that the drama of the stories and the PlayWorlds, and the emotional connection to the characters in the story really helped captured children's attention, especially girls' and facilitated their positive engagement with STEM. Kathy's Conceptual PlayWorlds include helping feed the hungry caterpillar and designing a structure to keep her safe, and building a spaceship to help Baby Bear travel to the moon.
Tanya Stephenson has passed her Final PhD milestone in record time, and is now focussed on finishing her thesis. Her research is focussed on how teachers can create an inclusive environment to foster girls' interest in STEM in the early years.
Celebrating Dr. Ade Dwi Utami
Juggling competing demands as a PhD student and a mother, Dr Ade Dwi Utami recently completed her PhD on ‘Children's learning and development in an early childhood education setting in Indonesia: A Playworld approach’. Her inspiring doctoral work won a Postgraduate Publication Award at Monash and also features in the Three Minute Thesis Spotlight section on the University website.
Dr Utami’s research developed an innovative play approach, in the Indonesian context. By filming teachers and children as they developed a collective imaginary play, she was able to demonstrate the power of imagination in play to improve children’s learning and development in different areas including; science, technology, communication, wellbeing and creativity. Learn more her fascinating research here.
Our team is growing again
We are delighted to welcome Dr Fatema Taj Johora to our Conceptual PlayLab team. Taj will lead the research of PlayLab on working with early childhood centres. A recipient of the Endeavour Scholarship for her doctoral research and Australian Leadership Award for Master of Education (Special Education) at Flinders University, Dr Johora has research and teaching experience in Australia and Bangladesh. Her doctoral research at Monash University used a cultural-historical approach and digital methodology, to gain deeper insight into the participation of children with disabilities in mainstream play-based settings in Australia. Dr Johora will lead data collection work in Pillar 1 of the programmatic study of the Conceptual PlayLab.
March and April PhD days
We had very productive days on 11th March and 27th April where some of our PhD students presented our data and analyses to each other to facilitate learning and feedback. Our PhD students are all at different points in our journey, and it was wonderful for those of us early on in our journey to watch and learn data analysis techniques from not just the research pillar leads but also our more senior students.
We are also grateful to Dr. Lorna Arnott for generously spending time to help us understand the process of publishing our papers in the International Journal of Early Years Education journal, where she is the Deputy Editor, and the Journal of Early Childhood Research, where she is the Assistant Editor. Lorna is a Senior Lecturer and Director of Early Years in the School of Education, University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK.
We were delighted and grateful to host Nicola O'Reilly, who joined our PhD day before 5am in Ireland and presented her fascinating study titled A delicate balance – Supporting children’s learning in ECEC settings as an adult co-player during sociodramatic play. Nicola has been working in Early Childhood Education for over 20 years and holds a Masters of Education in Maynooth University from which I graduated last year. She is currently heading up the development of a STEM CPD project for Early Childhood Professionals with a team from Dublin City University and the support of several Government Departments. She is also on the Editorial Board of Education Matters, Ireland’s Education Yearbook.
Our collaboration with the KINDknow Centre, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences continues
Following our joint PhD day, Maria Grindheim, a research co-ordinator at the KINDknow Centre, conducted a feature interview with Marilyn, where they talked about what led to Marilyn's interest in early childhood education, and what she saw as the most important issues in the field. Marilyn is the director of our PlayLab and she is also a professor II at the KINDknow Centre.
Marilyn's journey in early childhood education started as a teenager with a school visit to the local kindergarten, where she was fascinated by children's mathematical thinking during play and inspired by a great kindergarten teacher. Her research in STEM learning has shown that if "you build children’s imagination in STEM, you are exploring wonder, creativity, imagining and then you are able to learn about concepts and bring them into your play and thereby play more richly." To Marilyn, the most important issues regarding early childhood education is the push to include more academic content and remove play in some countries, while other countries are wanting to include more play-based programs in the early years.
Marilyn also discussed the gender imbalance in STEM fields, how that has an impact on women's career opportunities, but also on the community as a whole. This imbalance starts in early childhood, where girls are still not accessing resources in play-based settings. However, research on our Conceptual PlayWorld model has shown that "the girls are just as excited about STEM as the boys", and while being inside conceptual play, the teachers notice gendered issues and ensure both boys and girls get equal access, whereas these issues can be missed when the teacher is outside of the play.
You can read the full interview here.
Latest papers
Our papers are available online with open access.
3) Programmatic research in the Conceptual PlayLab: STEM PlayWorld as an educational experiment and as a source of development. Subscribe to the journal for free to access the paper.
You can also access our latest working papers from the Conceptual PlayLab publications page.
Here is to an exciting 2021!
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If you are an early childhood educator who would like to have an opportunity to participate in the Conceptual PlayLab research activities in the future, you can register your interest and join our private Facebook group - Conceptual PlayWorlds for Educators. You can also access free resources for educators.
If you are a parent who would like to have an opportunity to participate in the Conceptual PlayLab research activities in the future, you can register your interest. You can also access free resources for families.
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