Let's Make Learning Playful!

“Learning should be a joy and full of excitement. It is life’s greatest adventure; it is an illustrated excursion into the minds of the noble and the learned.” Taylor Caldwell

?Many years ago, when I began my teaching career, I modeled so much of my teaching practice after the way that I had been taught while going to school.?Think back to how you learned.?Depending on your age, your teacher and school, perhaps you may remember sitting in rows, your teacher lecturing in the front of the room using the chalkboard, whiteboard or overhead projector while you hastily tried to keep up with taking the class notes.?Maybe you remember sitting stagnant in your desk and chair and doing things like popcorn reading, filling in worksheets, or writing an essay that only your teacher would read.?Or maybe you remember doing a lot of listening and memorizing of facts, then likely forgetting what you crammed into your head as soon as you took a quiz or test.

As young and as na?ve as I was when I started my teaching career, it did not take me long to realize that this is not the way students learn best.?I can vividly remember lecturing in the front of the room to 36 sixth graders, teaching just the way I remembered, when out of nowhere one of my students in the front row, stood up and briskly walked to a student in the back row and started a fight.?In my head, I was thinking, “How could this happen, I was so prepared and my students were so engaged.”?

?Compliance Is Not Engagement

It was around this time, that I learned that compliance is not engagement, quiet listening is not learning and that if I wanted my students to learn at deeper levels; then I had to make learning more fun; where students were so enthralled with the task at hand, that they didn’t even realize that they were learning.

?Over the years, I learned that the best ingredients for student learning incorporate student interests, opportunities to solve real-world problems, giving an audience, collaborating with peers, being able to apply, enhance & contribute to their groups through their personal strengths, making learning hands-on and multi-model, and incorporating fun and play into learning.

The Power of Play

A group of researchers from the University of Cambridge analyzed decades of research on play-based learning—and concluded that it can have a “greater positive effect” on the acquisition of skills than more traditional approaches that prioritize seat time and explicit instruction (For Young Kids, The Power of Play-Based Learning).?Additionally, according to early childhood educator and author Erika Christakis from this same article, “Incorporating key elements of play—like wonder, exploration, and student agency…provides an “optimal” approach for students.”

BrainPOP & Play

?When I Googled the words, "BrainPOP" "play" "learning" 315,000 results came up.?When I read some of the comments made by teachers, parents, and others from these search results; some of these following quotes stood out to me:

• “I want to talk about learning through play... I must warn you that I am about to gush about a resource called BrainPOP.”
• "The videos are very funny, plus they explain information in a way that is easy for kids to understand and remember.”
• “Students are engaged, learning new tools, exposed to a variety of resources, and having fun while they learn."
• “My daughter has never been so excited about learning. She chooses what interests her and her journey into that subject begins with BrainPOP."
• “Kids find Moby hilarious and easy to relate to.”
• “Your Kids will beg to play BrainPOP.”
• ?“When students view a BrainPOP video, you can feel the excitement in everyone. The whole class knows we are about to learn a lot, see a lot, think about a lot, and most likely, laugh a few times.?It’s a lovely experience each time we view a video, use Pop-A-Joke, view Belly Up, and take a quiz or two.”

?This concept of play and learning runs deep in the DNA of BrainPOP. Just last week, our founder, Dr. Avraham Kadar said when KIRKBI A/S , the Denmark-based company that owns toy maker the LEGO Group , acquired BrainPOP, “At BrainPOP, we have always put kids at the center of everything we do. This unique DNA is deeply rooted in my perspective as a father, pediatrician, and scientist.”?And how kids learn best and the science behind it, is what BrainPOP is all about.?

?“Play gives children a chance to practice what they are learning.” Mister Rogers

BrainPOP offers so many whimsical, fun and effective ways to engage with their learning. With over 1,200 standards-aligned topics across core academic subjects, every topic includes animated movies, playful formative assessments, and deeper learning activities that scaffold critical content knowledge, skill development, and creative transfer of knowledge across core subjects.

Playful Methods To Engage Students in Effective & Fun Ways

• Creative Coding - Developed in partnership with Scratch Foundation and Vidcode , Creative Coding provides block and text-based coding projects spanning the K-12 curriculum.?Through coding, students are able to be curious, imaginative and creative thinkers.

• ?Make-a-Movie?- Make-a-Movie feature allows students to create their own BrainPOP-style movies. Students can create their own drawings or use BrainPOP's library to select images to use in their movies. They can change backgrounds, record and add their narration and transitions, and when they are done they can share the final product with their classmates and teacher.
• ?Make-a-Map?- Make-a-Map is a concept mapping tool which allows students to create concept maps to demonstrate their understanding and enhance their understanding of key relations and concepts in the movie. Students can create a new concept map or choose from the pre-designed templates including: Spider, Vocabulary, Problem/Solution, Cycle Relationship, Structure, Story Analysis, Storyboard, and Compare and Contrast.
• Belly Up - Belly Up is a playful and fun feature for Kindergarten through 3rd grade students that displays comics relevant to the topic of the movie. Teachers can use these comics in various educational activities to activate students’ prior knowledge, practice literacy skills, check students’ comprehension and more. Students can also create their own Belly Up comic.

• Pop a Joke - Every?BrainPOP Jr.?topic features Pop a Joke, which is a brief text and read-aloud joke that uses humor to instill understanding about the topWord Play - Word Play is "a feature that prompts students to write, draw and create a short script based on 5 topic specific vocabulary words." Teachers can use Word Play to enhance students’ vocabulary learning. Students have the choice to write, draw or act words out.
• GameUP - Educational games, which are curated from a variety of respected partners, captivate students and help them learn in a manner that’s engaging, fun and playful.

Let’s Make Learning Playful

?Mariah Bruehl, Educator and author said,

“We believe that all children are budding scientists, artists, mathematicians, authors, and scholars and have an inherent drive to learn and make a positive impact on the world. Playful Learning is the magic that takes place when you meld a child’s natural sense of curiosity with thoughtfully planned learning experiences.” ?

?BrainPOP's mission is to empower kids to shape the world around them and within them; and when teachers and schools utilize BrainPOP, students have the chance to learn about a plethora of topics in creative, fun and playful ways!