Physical Play as a Learning Medium

 
 

Team members: Junnan Yu, Andrea DeVero, Mariana Tamashiro, Clement Zheng, Ricarose Roque

Learning to code is typically an individual and sedentary activity in front of a screen or around a hardware platform. How can we expand the ways how children can engage in computational learning and make the experience more active and social? In this project, we explore physical play as a medium to facilitate learning, in particular, computational learning. We first performed a systematic literature review of educational technologies and teaching practices that leverage physical activities to support educational purposes. We examined the relationships between physical activity, learning practices, and technology design, based on which we identified the opportunities to design educational technologies and learning experiences that are centered around physical activity.

Second, we are working with community-based organizations to organize coding workshops that invite young people to create and play with physical activities. We explore how to combine computational learning with physical activities for young people. Third, we are designing and developing coding kits that support children to learn computational concepts and skills while playing with physical activities. 

Relevant publications