Cultivating Reflective Practitioners: Playful Pathways to Professional Identity

Research topic/aim

We explore how playful approaches to learning can be used in social education and teacher education to challenge ready-made answers and foster reflective educational practices. Our aim is to show how playful teaching can be a catalyst for emergent and embodied social dimensions of professional learning in ways where students are simultaneously enabled to navigate the tension between comfort and challenge towards preparing for their future professional identity.

Theoretical framework

Playful learning in higher education supports human flourishing and growth (Jensen et al., 2021); fosters courage to challenge oneself (Nørgård & Moseley, 2021); nurtures engagement and imagination; and encourages collaboration (Boysen et al., 2022). Furthermore, playful learning has been shown to challenge students' ways of being present in the classroom (Oreskov & Sønnichsen, 2023).

Methodology/research design 

This study draws on an abductive analysis (Brinkmann, 2014) across three different empirical situations from design experiments playfully exploring elements of students' future professional practice within teacher education and social education. These design-experiments are conducted through design-based research (Buhl et al., 2022) and research through art and practice (Rasmussen, 2012).

Expected results/findings

Our analysis identifies three key themes emerging from playful approaches to learning in teacher education and social education: embodied professional identity formation, balancing comfort and challenge, and embracing emergent and social dimensions of professional learning. While these themes provide opportunities in navigating the complexities of preparing for future professional practice, they also point to how students' hope for own future professional practice depends on embodied and sensory opportunities to reflect on how they will act in their future roles.

Relevance to Nordic educational research

Through our findings we discuss how playful approaches to learning contributes to a broader and critical discourse on how differentiated pedagogical approaches can continuously help bring diversity, hope, and sustainability into preparing students for future professional practices.
 

References

Boysen, M. S., Sørensen, M., Jensen, H., von Seelen, J., & Skovbjerg, H. M. (2022). Playful learning designs in teacher education and early childhood teacher education: A scoping review. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 120, 1–10.

Brinkmann, S. (2014). Doing Without Data. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 720–725.

Buhl, M., Hanghøj, T., & Henriksen, T. D. (2022). Reconceptualising Design-Based Research. Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy, 17(4), 205–210.

Jensen, J. B., Pedersen, O., Lund, O., & Skovbjerg, H. M. (2021). Playful approaches to learning as a realm for the humanities in the culture of higher education: A hermeneutical literature review. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 0(0), 1–22.

Nørgård, R. T. & Moseley, A. (2021). The Playful Academic. The Journal of Play in Adulthood 3(1), 1-8. 

Oreskov, S. W., & Sønnichsen, L. H. (2023). Underviserens arbejde med at skabe deltagelse i undervisning med legekvalitet. Forskning i pædagogers profession og uddannelse, 7(1), 62–69.

Rasmussen, B. (2012). Kunsten å forske med kunsten: Et blikk på kunnen ut fra praksis-teorirelasjonen. In B. Rasmussen & R. G. Gjærum (Eds), Forestilling, framføring, forskning. Metodologi i anvendt teaterforskning (pp. 23–49). Akademika forlag. Trondheim.