Welcome to our first post for 2022!
STEM Findings from the PlayLab pubic lecture
Come along and hear about how infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers think, create and collectively innovate in STEM.
Laureate Professor Marilyn Fleer and Dr Prabhat Rai will share an overview of what we have learned over three years:
- snapshots of practices from the PlayLab researchers through video and photographic documentation
- new findings about how infants and young children think with concepts
- how to authentically create STEM problems in play
- how conceptual thinking changes from infancy to school
- new digital innovations and possibilities for imagining in STEM for playgroups, preschools, family homes and schools
Laureate Professor Marilyn and Doctor Prabhat will be joined by PhD graduate Doctor Kulsum Chishti Yonzon, and PhD candidate Sonya Nedovic.
Date: Thursday 17 March 2022
Time: 5.45pm – 8:00pm (AEDT, GMT+11)
To register for the event follow this link.
Event schedule
- 5:45pm
- Arrival/registrations/exhibition for in person attendees
- 6:30pm
- Panel presentation commences in room and online
- 7:45pm
- Questions from audience
- 8pm
- Event concludes
Our team keeps growing
We welcome Doctor Anne Suryani to our Conceptual PlayLab team as a Senior Research Fellow to lead Pillar 3 - Developing a national, evidence-based model for STEM teaching in the pre-school years!
Anne holds a PhD in Educational Psychology with a Mollie Holman Medal for the best doctoral thesis in education from Monash University. Prior to this role this role, she worked as a research fellow at Melbourne Graduate School of Education, the University of Melbourne.
Anne has been working in a range of government-funded, consultancy and grant-based educational research in the Asia-Pacific Region, including Australia. She has strong quantitative skills and experience in large-scale survey design and analysis as well as longitudinal and comparative studies. Her research interests include teacher motivation, teacher education, teacher professional development, religious tolerance education, and educational policy.
We also welcome four new PhD students, Wenxuan Zhang, Hong Chen, Zixi Liang, and Roujia He.
Wenxuan's research interests focus on the early childhood mathematics education in China, with specific emphasis on applying cultural-historical perspectives to understanding play-based pedagogy in children’s mathematics development. She is enthusiastic about how early childhood teachers in China implement Mathematical Playworld as an innovative approach.
Hong has worked as an early childhood teacher and also a primary level language teacher in Melbourne. Having been working with children from early childhood settings and primary school settings, she is passionate about discovering the depth of transition in regards to play, professional development and community involvement. She is particularly interested in supporting children's transition from early childhood settings to primary schools in Australia through the implementation of Conceptual PlayWorld. We’re looking forward to seeing the results of her research on children's transition to schools.
Zixi holds a Master of Teaching and Graduate Certificate of Educational Research from Monash University. She is passionate about improving children's social-emotional development in vulnerable families. She is also interested in fathers' involvement, and how to design early intervention programs and implement effective practices to provide unique opportunities for non-resident fathers to contribute to children's social-emotional development.
Roujia has worked as an early childhood educator and teacher in Melbourne and China. She is passionate about children’s cognitive development in a family environment. She is particularly interested in helping parents support children’s mathematical development in home sitting in China through the implementation of Conceptual Play World . We’re looking forward to seeing the results of her research on improving parenting skills through Conceptual Play World.
Latest papers
Our latest papers are available online.
- The dialectical relation of real and digital Conceptual PlayWorlds in Family Day Care
- Promoting Chinese children's agency in science learning: Conceptual PlayWorld as a new play practice
- Teaching STEM through play: Conditions created by the Conceptual PlayWorld model for early childhood teachers
- “You Can be Whatever You Want to be!”: Transforming Teacher Practices to Support Girls’ STEM Engagement
You can also access our latest working papers from the Conceptual PlayLab publications page.
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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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