Playful Learning: Tools, Techniques, and Tactics

Over the past decade, there has been an increased use of playful approaches to teaching and learning in Higher Education. Proponents argue that creating ‘safe’ playful spaces supports learning from failure, management of risk-taking, creativity, and innovation; as well as increasing the enjoyment of learning for many students. However, the emergent field of playful learning in adulthood is under-explored, and there is a lack of appreciation of the nuanced and exclusive nature of adult play. This article will first examine the theoretical background to the field, providing an initial definition of ‘playful learning’ through the metaphor of the ‘magic circle’ and presenting a hypothesis of why play is important for learning throughout the life course. Second, it will frame the field by highlighting different aspects of playful learning: playful technologies, tasks, techniques, and tactics. The third section of the article provides two case studies that exemplify different aspects of play: the EduScapes escape room design project, which uses playful failure-based learning; and the Playful Learning Conference, which employs playful principles to rethink the conference format. The article concludes by highlighting three central issues for this emerging field: lack of a research trajectory; the language of play; and unacknowledged privilege inherent in the use of playful learning

Perceived value in classroom contact: rising to the challenge of learner disengagement

Higher Education globally is becoming increasingly accountable to output metrics, such as those that purport to encapsulate teaching quality and student satisfaction, leading to increased discourses of value-for-money. Despite the significant costs of university courses and links between class participation and attainment, many students chose not to take full advantage of the scheduled classes available to them. In this paper, we present the findings from student-led interviews with forty-seven undergraduates. Primary reasons for not engaging with learning opportunities highlighted the key role of assessment in shaping student value judgements. This included the attribution of perceived additional value to learning experiences related directly to assessment, and the prioritisation of assessment activities over participation at taught classes. We conclude by discussing these instrumental assessment-driven behaviours in the context of an increasingly outcome-driven global Higher Education sector, and the problematic nature of learner freedom

Playful teaching between freedom and control: exploring the magic circle in higher education

Within higher education today, a culture is emerging characterized by fear of failure, avoidance of risk-taking, extrinsic motivation, and goal-oriented behavior – what we call a ‘gameful approach’ to HE. This paper uses the concept of ‘the magic circle’ – a central metaphor within game studies and play culture – to explore an alternative more ‘playful approach’ to teaching and learning. Here, we highlight the potentials of playful teaching through adopting a ‘lusory attitude’ oscillating between free-form play and rule-bound systems. This development of a more playful approach to HE is promising as it invites for a different type of teaching and learning environment, providing a safe educational space, in which mistake-making is not only encouraged, but engrained into the system. Taking up a ‘lusory attitude’ in the magic circle can create freedom, support playfulness and intrinsic motivation, and make HE emerge as an open educational process rather than as high-score assessment product

Playful learning in higher education: developing a signature pedagogy

Increased focus on quantifiable performance and assessment in higher education is creating a learning culture characterized by fear of failing, avoidance of risk, and extrinsic goal-oriented behaviours. In this article, we explore possibilities of a more playful approach to teaching and learning in higher education through the metaphor of the ‘magic circle’. This approach stimulates intrinsic motivation and educational drive, creates safe spaces for academic experimentation and exploration, and promotes reflective risk-taking, ideation and participation in education. We present a model of playful learning, drawing on notions of signature pedagogies, field literature, and two qualitative studies on learner conceptions of enjoyment and reasons for disengagement. We highlight the potential of this approach to invite a different mind-set and environment, providing a formative space in which failure is not only encouraged, but a necessary part of the learning paradigm

Exploring the views of young women and their healthcare professionals on dietary habits and supplementation practices in adolescent pregnancy: a qualitative study

Background: Nutrition is a modifiable factor affecting foetal growth and pregnancy outcomes. Inadequate nutrition is of particular concern in adolescent pregnancies with poor quality diet and competing demands for nutrients. The aim of this study was to explore knowledge and understanding of nutrition advice during adolescent pregnancy,and identify barriers and facilitators to dietary change and supplementation use in this vulnerable population. Methods: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with young women and key antenatal healthcare providers: midwives, family nurses and obstetricians. Doncaster, Manchester and London were chosen as sites offering different models of midwifery care alongside referral to the Family Nurse Partnership programme. Results: A total of 34 young women (adolescents aged 16–19 years) and 20 health professionals were interviewed. Young women made small changes to their dietary intake despite limited knowledge and social constraints. Supplementation use varied; the tablet format was identified by few participants as a barrier but forgetting to take them was the main reason for poor adherence. Health professionals provided nutrition information but often lack the time and resources to tailor this appropriately. Young women’s prime motivator was a desire to have a healthy baby; they wanted to understand the benefits of supplementation and dietary change in those terms. Conclusion: Pregnancy is a window of opportunity for improving nutrition but often constrained by social circumstances. Health professionals should be supported in their role to access education, training and resources which build their self-efficacy to facilitate change in this vulnerable population group beyond the routine care they provide

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)1.

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field

Sex Determination:Why So Many Ways of Doing It?

Sexual reproduction is an ancient feature of life on earth, and the familiar X and Y chromosomes in humans and other model species have led to the impression that sex determination mechanisms are old and conserved. In fact, males and females are determined by diverse mechanisms that evolve rapidly in many taxa. Yet this diversity in primary sex-determining signals is coupled with conserved molecular pathways that trigger male or female development. Conflicting selection on different parts of the genome and on the two sexes may drive many of these transitions, but few systems with rapid turnover of sex determination mechanisms have been rigorously studied. Here we survey our current understanding of how and why sex determination evolves in animals and plants and identify important gaps in our knowledge that present exciting research opportunities to characterize the evolutionary forces and molecular pathways underlying the evolution of sex determination

Genomic reconstruction of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in England.

The evolution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus leads to new variants that warrant timely epidemiological characterization. Here we use the dense genomic surveillance data generated by the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium to reconstruct the dynamics of 71 different lineages in each of 315 English local authorities between September 2020 and June 2021. This analysis reveals a series of subepidemics that peaked in early autumn 2020, followed by a jump in transmissibility of the B.1.1.7/Alpha lineage. The Alpha variant grew when other lineages declined during the second national lockdown and regionally tiered restrictions between November and December 2020. A third more stringent national lockdown suppressed the Alpha variant and eliminated nearly all other lineages in early 2021. Yet a series of variants (most of which contained the spike E484K mutation) defied these trends and persisted at moderately increasing proportions. However, by accounting for sustained introductions, we found that the transmissibility of these variants is unlikely to have exceeded the transmissibility of the Alpha variant. Finally, B.1.617.2/Delta was repeatedly introduced in England and grew rapidly in early summer 2021, constituting approximately 98% of sampled SARS-CoV-2 genomes on 26 June 2021