Description
Workshop session with an abstract:Playful learning in higher education often conjures images of lively student engagement, creative exploration, and boundless curiosity. Yet, what happens when these playful approaches go utterly wrong? In this interactive workshop—humorously titled Surprise and Disguise: Total Playful Failure in Higher Education—we will delve into precisely those moments when well-intentioned “play” in learning situations misfires. By exploring these failures and their underlying causes, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the intricate dynamics that shape playful learning environments and discover innovative ways to salvage and reinvent such methods when they falter.
The workshop is divided into two distinct parts. The first part offers a deep dive into failures and dilemmas in playful learning. Participants encounter a series of scenarios scattered across campus in which playful activities have run aground. In small groups, participants reflect on their own experiences of playful approaches gone awry and discuss how factors such as context, facilitation style, student expectations, and institutional constraints may have contributed to these failures. A new dilemma is unveiled after each discussion, prompting continuous surprise and comparison among various scenarios.
In the second part, participants collaborate to co-create an Exploratorium, using their collective insights into how playful learning fails—and what can be learned from those failures. They work from the premise that by learning from mistakes, one can uncover the potential inherent in playful approaches to learning. The culminating artifact will be a collaboratively created Exploratorium, designed to spark reflection on how failures can reveal new possibilities for playful teaching and learning. It aims to nurture ‘fail-ability’ and encourage those who experience the Exploratorium afterward to consider how failures can shed light on playful strategies in higher education.
This workshop aims to provoke and delight, while also challenging participants to look beyond simplistic notions of play. By grappling with the very moments of failure that we often seek to hide, we invite a transformative rethinking of what playful learning in higher education can achieve. In doing so, we hope to discover new strategies to turn those failures into catalysts for deeper, more meaningful learning—and ultimately expand our sense of what is possible when we dare to play, fail, and learn.
| Period | 2 Jul 2025 |
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| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Brighton, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |