Part of the seminar on the relationships between dialogue and children’s self regulation, July 2016

Acting Director of PEDAL Centre, David Whitebread, is interviewed in BBC Breakfast report on playful writing.

Cultures of Creativity, nurturing creative mindsets from LEGO Foundation on Vimeo.

Creativity is one of the most important competencies of the 21st Century. Yet, the puzzling question is how to nurture it? Children are creative from the day they are born and the film describes how to support creativity across cultures. The content is based on the report, Cultures of Creativity, published by the LEGO Foundation, 2013. Authors: David Gauntlett and Bo Stjerne Thomsen and 20 leading international experts on play, learning and creativity. Read more on LEGOFoundation.com

The University of Cambridge and the LEGO Foundation has explored how learning through play helps children develop better writing skills.

You can read about the project in more detail here: https://goo.gl/Wk9aef

Join PEDAL in the conversation about the changing nature of childhood…are we really heading from 'free range' to 'hot house'? Is the Children's Commissioner for England correct when she calls for play on prescription and claims that children lead a "battery hen existence" (more info in the report 'Playing Out')?

Chaired by one of PEDAL’s lead researchers, Dr Jenny Gibson, the panel of speakers comprise of:

Kathryn Lester (University of Sussex – an academic who researches anxiety in children);
Nicola Butler (Chair of Play England’s Board of Trustees and Director of Hackney Play Association – managing Homerton Grove Adventure Playground);
Tim Gill (a researcher, writer and consultant on childhood).
Stephen Mitchell (Chair, Parkour UK & consultant)
Come and join us for this lively and topical debate.

This seminar will focus on the role of research-practice partnerships in bringing self-regulated learning to classrooms. In her talk, Dr Perry will review the research-practice framework in two separate research projects, addressing some of the challenges associated with traditional approaches to conducting research, challenging notions of control and fidelity.

This seminar hopes to provoke fundamental questions about the role research should play in improving educational practice.

Dr. Nancy Perry is the Dorothy Lam Chair in Special Education and Professor of Educational and Counselling Psychology and Special Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada.

Her research has two main goals:

understanding how classroom processes are implicated in children’s development of self-regulated learning (SRL);

working with teachers to design activities and structure interactions with students that support SRL.

Dr. Perry is a main contributor to our understanding that young children can and do regulate for learning, and how classroom tasks, instructional practices, and interpersonal relationships influence their SRL. She is also a leader in the development and use of measures, beyond self-report tools, that reveal children’s self-regulation in situ.

Play is a serious matter for young children across all cultures. This is evidenced by the passionate, intensive and energetic engagement many children invest in this activity. Play experiences are widely recognised to create the foundation for a child’s healthy and holistic development. In Finland opportunities for play are highly regarded in the education of children under seven years old, and the interest in playful learning has extended to the education of older children and even adults.

Professor Kumpulainen’s talk will reflect on current international research and how this evidence is reflected in Finnish education policy and practice. It will show how play and learning is also about playing with learning. The talk will end by considering the changing landscape of play in the digital era and its consequences for children’s learning, educational practice and teacher professional competencies.

Kristiina Kumpulainen is Professor of Education at the Department of Teacher Education at the Faculty of Behavioural Sciences, University of Helsinki. She is a founding member and the scientific director of the Playful Learning Center (www.plchelsinki.fi). She has also served as the Director of the Information and Evaluation Services Unit at the Finnish National Board of Education before her current position. She received her PhD in Education from the University of Exeter in 1994.