Taking Children ’ s Play Seriously : Playlab at Falk Laboratory School
To learn more about Playlab and its goals , Adam Reger , Falk ’ s communications coordinator , spoke to Katrina Bartow Jacobs , Falk ’ s research coordinator , and Hillary Henry , a PhD student in the University of Pittsburgh School of Education Learning Sciences and Policy program . Bartow Jacobs helped to design the research study , and she and Henry are documenting what they see at Falk .
Q : What kinds of things are you looking at and recording from Playlab ?
Henry : We have our base research question , so every time we go into the field , we talk about what we want to focus on that day . A lot of the times when we are both out there , I will focus more specifically on a group of students or a certain activity that ’ s happening , while Katrina looks more at the big picture of what ’ s going on in the classroom .
Bartow Jacobs : Our big research question originally was , “ What kinds of opportunities does curated play offer kids for learning ?” The main domains we are looking at are socioemotional learning , literacy , and math integration . We are looking for how they are using this time to develop negotiation skills , to engage in literacy activities and practices , and to engage in math . We ’ ve seen evidence of all three of those things .
Two sub-questions that we ’ ve developed through our field notes are , “ How does everyone define play , and what do we mean when we say play ?” Because even in our own look at the literature , there ’ s a lot of play-based learning , but what does that mean ? How structured or unstructured is it ? We feel like that is particularly important as we look at this for older grades . The other sub-question we ’ ve become interested in is , “ How is this approach really different at a school like Falk , that already has a strong play focus in the elementary grades in particular , versus a place like Faison , where unfortunately kids really aren ’ t given the opportunities , materials , or time to engage in that more open-ended play ?”
Q : What kind of data are you collecting ?
Bartow Jacobs : In terms of data , we are taking a lot of field notes . We ’ re looking specifically at how children are communicating with one another or how Ms . Ambrose , their instructor , is communicating with them . The children are keeping journals , and we are going to collect and scan those . As well , Tegan is doing documentation as the teacher , which is really one of the goals of Playlab : the teacher as a documentarian . So we will be collecting her documentation to see what she focused on and what she noticed primarily through the photographs she is capturing .
Henry : We talked about having Ms . Ambrose show the students the photographs , allowing the students to explain what they were doing in the pictures .
Bartow Jacobs : I think they are just starting to do that . Hillary will be interviewing Tegan , and probably one of us will be going to interview Pittsburgh Public Schools teachers as well . The goal is really to gather more information about how the kids and teachers are seeing things . We are looking at kids ’ use of the space and their reflections on it .
Q : Hillary , where does this fit in with your research ?
Henry : I am particularly interested in how kids learn . What is going on that is making kids learn ? So the Playlab aspect of my research is really about where learning is showing up in their play . Where are we seeing the socioemotional learning or the language arts showing up in their play without it being prompted ?
Q : Can you give me a sense of what your field notes and observations look like ? What sort of things do you write ?
Bartow Jacobs : The goal of field notes is always to start with what ’ s in front of us , and then later we discuss and write our reflections and analysis . We try not to produce judgment and say this is good or bad but more just what are we seeing in that moment .
Q : So you ’ re noting some things that you heard ?
Bartow Jacobs : Yes . Because we know what questions we ’ re interested in , it helps us stay more focused on what we ’ re attending to at the moment . If I overhear some children — like in kindergarten some kids were playing with chalk and sounding out the word “ heart ”— it helps us to keep our ears tuned . Some were focused on killing lanternflies and yes , that is interesting , but doesn ’ t really answer our focus on literacy and math .
Our research questions give us a filter that we can use , and then I ’ m also noting how children move through the play time . Do some kids stay at one station the whole time , or do some shift their play ? I do a lot of noting how many kids are in places and things like that , whereas Hillary is more sitting herself near a group and engaging . We try to note if a child comes over and asks us what we ’ re doing .
30 EN AVANT | FALL 2023