In this chapter we examine the features of playfulness in more detail. They are used to plan playful activity for basic education and to assess both activity and learning environments. These six features are chosen on the grounds of (i) our three datasets and (ii) current theoretical views of playing and socio-emotional learning. The features are interconnected and somewhat overlapping. The examples from our empirical data cited in the text serve to reinforce our understanding of the significance of these features for children and tutors. The role of playing and games in activity is crucial, and playfulness describes the quality of activity and learning environments. Playfulness may also refer to the characteristics of participants. Playful individuals are guided by what is completely novel to them. Consequently, innovation, spontaneity and creativity correlate strongly with playfulness (Dunn 2004). The concept of playfulness stresses the idea that activity itself is significant and that the function of playfulness is not only to induce performance of tasks related to learning. The concept emphasises the nature of a process where playing and games are elements of such a process but their role and format are determined in everyday practice.
4.1 Embodiment
The significance of embodiment is apparent in the view that human neurobiological systems and body function together, in interaction with each other and with the environment and other people. As the human mind is also embodied, abstract thought is not isolated from the sensory-motor system but, on the contrary, is based on it. (Johnson 1999). The concept of embodiment refers to what a person experiences, knows and feels in her/his body and how she/he interacts through her/his body with other people and the environment (Hyvönen et al. 2003). The body phenomenological view (see. Burkit 1999; Johnson 1999) emphasises the quality of experiences, which stresses emotions because they afford us valuable information about the state of our bodies and their relation to ongoing activity, such as playing and games.
Different manifestations of embodiment, especially experiencing emotions, are obvious in our research data, for example in the playing worlds of children (creative sessions), that express elements of caring, horror, excitement, satisfaction, aggression, humour and security, among others. Also the story-crafting data reveals the significance of emotions, especially in peer relations. Concerning emotions, children express their embodiment in many ways, for example, by adopting views on moral issues, by showing caring or lack thereof, by determining objects of desire and by
THE FEATURES OF PLAYFULNESS IN THE PEDAGOGICAL MODEL OF TPL – 6 TUTORING, PLAYING AND LEARNING
NETWORK-BASED EDUCATION 2005, 14th–17th SEPTEMBER 2005, ROVANIEMI, FINLAND
telling stories of both fearfulness and empowerment. Children also address hunger, cold, illness, death and embodiment, among other things. During the test playing at the sports centre, an overweight child was overjoyed to realise that he was the heaviest and the strongest: I made it through with arm strength, I’m the heaviest and I’m the strongest of all. I’ll be coming back. (test playing). So the limitations may become strengths in some sense.
Embodiment is related to one of the characteristics of mature play by Bodrova and Leong (2003) that emphasise bodily and verbal interaction. Also games provide a channel for experiencing forms of embodiment. Role games can be compared with role play because they involve the gamer or player as if claiming the body of another. The roles enable different positions, for example, so that a player is alternatively the recipient or provider of help or the maker or executor of decisions. This was clearly reflected in the creative sessions of playing worlds because each child had two roles, that of a planner and that of a player. While children created play environments they also played in the environments so created. It is easier to have emotional experiences when functioning within various roles than when being one’s own self. Moreover, role play trains the ability to perceive and interpret emotions and intentions of other players (Bendelow & Mayall 2002).
The emotions and the so-called manifestations of embodiment of various types can be viewed as significant factors in the processes of tutoring, playing and gaming, as well as that of learning (Lehtonen et al. in print). Emotions and the tendency to assess experiences on the basis of their pleasantness and unpleasantness are not only background factors for action, inclination to study and motivation but influence, parallel to Damasio (2001) how one plays, whether one plays at all and whether one remembers the issues processed during play. We do not only learn from our environment and our own actions but, especially, from other participants. That is why we examine, as the second feature of playfulness, collaboration, which is required for conveying, assessing and comprehending models and for accepting oneself and others, among other things.
4.2 Collaboration
In the context of playfulness, collaboration refers to different manners of social cohesion and cooperation and collaborative construction of knowledge. Collaboration has a special role in role play and role games. According the definition of good play (Bodrova & Leong 2003), collaborative action requires both major and minor roles. For example, test playing at the sports centre included, in addition to police officers, people in need of help, people and animals in traffic and other police station personnel. It was interesting to observe that both boys and girls acted collaboratively, helping each other, in situations where group members needed to look after each other. Our data also suggests that, in the collaboration of girls and boys, girls and boys have an opportunity to learn from each other cultural skills corresponding to the opposite gender.
From the point of view of collaboration, it is important to circulate roles so that each player is given an opportunity in her/his turn to experience so-called ‘momentary mastery’ and thus practice, by assuming roles, different skills and actual social interaction, which she/he might not be able to experience otherwise. Roles also enable children to practice the language, intonation and vocabulary appropriate for different situations. Stage plays and stories in their various forms constitute important expressive training. Collaboration is important also when rules are agreed on and observing them is practiced. All playing has rules, including role playing (Vygotsky 1978), and it is important to come to an agreement so that all can accept them. The importance of rules comes up, if they are broken: breaking rules also interfere playing and games (cf. Huizinga 1980). During the test-playing at the sports centre we observed how essentially how rules correlate with the logic of action applied. The following quote demonstrates that the rules were defective and were not understood identically be all. Janitor cats-play was nice and it had Sepsu that was peering about but it was a little annoying that he was peering at me all the time. It was no wonder that Markus got past her. (test playing). The rules of good play are clear, and observing them during playing or a game trains the child to understand that she/he cannot act solely according to her/his desires in social interaction. (Bodrova & Leong 2003).
According to creation sessions, the imitation of other children and especially humour afforded collaborative ideation among children. In addition, spontanious and funny ideas flourished. The fun in these ideas was based on comical rules that are known implicitly. From the adult viewpoint this kind of humour represents mostly slapstick comedy, but is valuable because it gives impetus to collaboration. Girls manifested a little bit different humour than boys, for example imagining with upside-down –world. However, humour is important channel to encourage collaborative thinking and acting among both gender.
THE FEATURES OF PLAYFULNESS IN THE PEDAGOGICAL MODEL OF TPL – 7 TUTORING, PLAYING AND LEARNING
NETWORK-BASED EDUCATION 2005, 14th–17th SEPTEMBER 2005, ROVANIEMI, FINLAND
experiences and problem-solving processes become meaningful. (Mercer 2000.) The playful activity of the story-crafting data – expressed via language – took place in social context with peers and family members. Children collaboratively created the emotional environments in small groups, as was the purpose of the creative sessions/in creative sessions.
4.3 Action
We define action primarily as physical activity that, in view of the other features of playfulness, invariably is experiential. Learning through playing (Roussou 2004) or learning by doing (Dewey 1957) are points of view that are emphasised in playfulness. Dewey (1957) downplays individualised knowledge construction in the classroom that tends to increase competition among learners. A competitive setting, in turn, decreases collaboration. Competition should be replaced with options for active pursuits, experiential action and knowledge about the significance of activity. (Dewey 1957.) The test playing at the sports centre demonstrated that children tolerate deficiencies and weaknesses that occur during the development of the environment and its technology as long as there is meaningful activity. Price and Rogers (2004) confirm that physical activity and interaction with physical environment strengthen commitment to and activity in learning. Active play involves physical exercise, as in the case of the play scenario of Janitor and three cats (test playing) that was based on a short adaptable frame story, rules and surprising turns of events. After playing, children reflected on collaborative action, as the following quote illustrates. Antti is praised by his friend who received help from him in the game. Antti, you were really nice. When I was over there and you touched that I could get out of that tube and move over. (test playing) One can state that when activity is meaningful for children it also engenders discussion among them.
According to the story-crafting data, action is a factor that consolidates girls and boys. Their mutual forms of action are concentrated in adventures and treasure hunts set at sea, on islands, in space and in wilderness. Actional format was prominent during creative sessions, involving volcanic mountains, caves, waterways and forests. Although in these data action is primarily connected with nature, built environments with various equipment and playhouses occupy children’s minds. What is again significant in them is that they make experiential action possible, and this should involve active physical interaction with a physical learning environment. According to Price and Rogers (2004), an active learning environment requires that children are aware of and understand the physical and digital worlds, learning experiences are authentic and there is collaboration. The challenge is to offer children options for such activities that would facilitate ever more physical interaction with their environment. Action becomes goal-oriented through narration, which we examine as the fourth feature of playfulness.
4.4 Narration
In playing and games, plotted stories are created and acted out, which allows a multiple means of creating narration, for example, with rhyming, gestures, music or pictorial collages. The playing can involve role play, stage plays or experiential adventures. Coherence of content is fundamental to plotted playing. Collaborative playing pursues, specifically, in addition to collaborative construction of creativity and knowledge, understanding of one’s self and others. Narration also serves to reinforce memory since, for example, a photograph of a day’s activity may retrieve a story acted out during playing. According to Crossley (2003), we combine isolated factors, whereby a photograph may produce a complete story. A plot constructs a comprehensible whole and thus enables remembering. In teaching we should pay more attention to acquiring narrative thinking because its vital role in our daily lifes. In addition to understanding, remembering and learning facts, narratives teach humanity, like social interaction (McEwan and Egan 1995). In story-crafting and creation sessions it could regularly be seen that children operated with relations, both with humans and animals.
A characteristic of good play is related to play duration, which is related to the plot. Playing may be of short or long duration, sometimes continuing for months or even years (Hakkarainen 2002; Karimäki 2004). Good playing is not confined to short periods of time but can always be continued, which often happens when the themes and the plot have been developed by children themselves. During playing that maintains the same themes for long periods of time children create imaginative situations, introduce new roles in the playing and invent new meanings for objects and the environment. (Cf. Vygotsky 1978; Hakkarainen 2002.) The players have the option to negotiate on play themes, which need to be sufficiently flexible for introducing new roles and subplots while playing is in progress. Themes can combine different environments and participants – this occurred during the creative sessions for playing worlds by preschool boys. Home, ocean, castle, pond, president, tortoise and protected tigers were combined. The processes where boys
THE FEATURES OF PLAYFULNESS IN THE PEDAGOGICAL MODEL OF TPL – 8 TUTORING, PLAYING AND LEARNING
NETWORK-BASED EDUCATION 2005, 14th–17th SEPTEMBER 2005, ROVANIEMI, FINLAND
created plotted story provided scenario which can evidently seen also by Huizingas (1980) viewpoint: playing makes and keeps order and harmony.
During the test playing at the sports centre children constructed, after an actional play scenario, a plotted story on the strength of five assisting words. In the actual playing, the task was to find the following five words: magic, map, crab, flag and quicksand, and then tell a story where these words occurred. It was interesting to note that, in the beginning of the story, the children were external narrators but as the plot unfolded they continued narration through the roles that they had constructed. Stories actually are an effective means of self-expression and facilitate expressing different, occasionally conflicting experiences (Wortham 2001). Telling stories both requires and demonstrates creativity, which is the fifth feature of playfulness.
4.5 Creativity
As knowledge is constructed collaboratively (Hakkarainen et al. 2004), creativity is similarly constructed according to our observations. Here one needs to pay attention to imitation and humour because they can free up thinking and imagination and generate an atmosphere conducive to creativity. This occurred during creative sessions where humour assisted meandering into unusual and even unconventional fantasy and allowed the creative process to begin. Imitation, in turn, appeared to be constructed so that a core idea was developed together through fantasy. (Hyvönen & Juujärvi accepted article; Hyvönen & Juujärvi 2004.) Imaginary situations, equipment and environments constitute the context of good playing (Hakkarainen 2002; Bodrova & Leong 2003). For example, the testing environment of the sports centre was transformed through imagination during playing into an apartment block teeming with cats, a bogey mountain full of deadly mushroom or a city with heavy traffic.
On the basis of these examples, one can state that there are creative individuals and processes, products that indicate creativity and environments that support creativity (Uusikylä 2002). For our research, it is important to identify such factor in the learning environment that foster participant creativity and facilitate their creative processes. Allowing an atmosphere of creativity alone promotes attaining theses goals. Allowing such an atmosphere also implies accepting diversity and requires encouragement from families and schools. In the context of allowing creativity, one must also assess the competitive settings of learning environments because competition tends to inhibit creativity. (Uusikylä 2002.) Instead of competition, creativity has been made one of the goals of the information society. In addition, well-being and enriching interactions are included in the ideals and goals (Himanen 2004).
4.6 Insight
Insight refers to problem-solving situations and to making observations and conclusions. According to Jarrett (1998), playfulness makes people “play” with a problem and thus enables them to solve it. Playfulness also refers to the ability to wonder and ask novel questions. Playing that requires and fosters insight includes various types of adventure and role playing where players encounter novel issues and situations. Insight and narration are combined in action so that problem-solving tasks and situations are included in the plot. Children, then, recognise in their action, through the story, the content as an intact whole. This is important for collaborative action in order to maintain the idea of a story in interaction with other children, which requires that the participants are able to negotiate (cf. Roussou 2004). Although the essential collaboration of players and gamers often promotes thinking and creative learning, the effect may be the reverse in some situation. This happens, for example, when children are instructed to do problem solving and not given feedback (Tudge 1992). The significance of feedback is also emphasised in view of individual differences among children as, for example, in problem-solving situations contained in a game some children employ sophisticated models for solution while others proceed by trial and error. (Ko 2002.)
During the test playing at the sports centre we observed that so-called defects may become positive experiences from the point of view of insight. Both the computer system and the ready-stored play scenarios were new to the children and partly highly problematic; the occasional clumsiness produced by the scenarios and the software increased interaction and cooperation among the children so that they were forced to solve problems together during playing and support each other when facing problematic situations. The question ‘What was the funniest thing of the test playing?’ mostly generated answers where physical exercise was considered as the funnies element. In addition, various problem solving tasks was described as being cheerful, as the following excerpt shows: When you had to look for those codes and it was
THE FEATURES OF PLAYFULNESS IN THE PEDAGOGICAL MODEL OF TPL – 9 TUTORING, PLAYING AND LEARNING
NETWORK-BASED EDUCATION 2005, 14th–17th SEPTEMBER 2005, ROVANIEMI, FINLAND
5 Conclusions
In this article, we have defined a pedagogical frame of reference, the TLP model, which is constructed of the processes of tutoring, playing and gaming as well as that of learning. In addition, we have defined the concept of playfulness and the six salient features that describe playfulness, namely embodiment, collaboration, action, narration, creativity and insight. Our theoretical frame of reference can be utilised in educational practice, for designing learning environments and activities for them and in theoretical examination of playing, gaming and learning. The goal of the pedagogical TLP model is to guide basic education practice to pursue more actional and embodied directions. Constructed outdoor learning environments suitable for playing and gaming can be utilised, in addition to the daily work at schools, for after-school clubs and meeting points of three generations – children, parents and grandparents.
In the future we will utilise the data [containing many voices collected during our research] for more detailed analysis and planning of learning environments and activities suitable for them. We will also make a more detailed study of the options for applying technology in learning environments. Our goal is to make technology familiar through games and playing, as well as to enhance the interaction among families, schools and the environment. This could be facilitated by various applications of information and communication technology that enable to different environments and individual involved in them to remain in contact. The significance of the applied technology arises from social and creative experiences and the mastery of one’s own world, which is also linked to processes of empowerment. Consequently, schools should consider what applications of information and communication technology are specifically oriented
In the future we will utilise the data [containing many voices collected during our research] for more detailed analysis and planning of learning environments and activities suitable for them. We will also make a more detailed study of the options for applying technology in learning environments. Our goal is to make technology familiar through games and playing, as well as to enhance the interaction among families, schools and the environment. This could be facilitated by various applications of information and communication technology that enable to different environments and individual involved in them to remain in contact. The significance of the applied technology arises from social and creative experiences and the mastery of one’s own world, which is also linked to processes of empowerment. Consequently, schools should consider what applications of information and communication technology are specifically oriented