Location: ZOOM

Time: 6:00pm – 7:30pm (CET)

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Department of Psychology, Temple University)

Re-imagining Education: Delivering High Quality Education through Active Playful Learning 

The “factory model” of education that dominates classrooms around the world is outdated. Teachers are pressured to improve students’ reading and math scores on standardized tests – even in preschool, yet assessments show that scores have remained mostly unchanged since the early 2000s. This model neither prepares students to thrive in the 21st century nor does it address systemic inequalities.  In our Brookings Big Ideas Piece (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2020), A new path to education reform, and in our recent release Making Schools Work (Hirsh-Pasek et al, 2022), we argue that it is possible to have a developmentally appropriate pedagogy and still offer children a banquet of rich curricular learning.  Rather than making kindergarten the new 1^st grade, early education offers a model for curricula and pedagogical approaches that embrace a breadth of skills, in a breadth of contexts at a breadth of ages. Active playful learning uses a 3-part equation, based in the science of learning, to realize this goal.  We start with cultural sensitivities that embrace community funds of knowledge that every child brings to our classrooms. We then add the “how” of learning such that if we teach in ways that capitalize on how brains learn, children are more likely to retain and transfer their knowledge. Third, we add “what” the children need to know to thrive in a world dotted with Chat GPT, and with workplaces that will later require them to foster collaborations and creativity. Again, based on the latest science, we suggest that students need to expand their repertoire to include the 6Cs — collaboration, communication, content, critical thinking, creative innovation and confidence (grit and growth mindset). In this talk, we demonstrate how this equation can be used to build learning communities, higher quality schools and digital platforms. Active, playful learning — rooted in the science — offers a powerful route for re-imagining education in our time.

Please request the zoom link from: pina(at)fh-potsdam.de