SEEKING PLAY Sarah Kuhn - Thinking With Things
Ever count using your fingers as an adult? Ever struggle to articulate an idea until you sketch it out on a whiteboard? Ever discuss 'stakeholder relationships' during lunch by sliding around the table condiments? Ever moved Lego objects around to scenario test project implementation? Ever considered how ‘playing around’ with objects helps you ‘play around’ with ideas?
Maybe we’ve overlooked that these everyday gestures highlight our fundamental human tendency to think with our body and think with things.
If your organisation is making decisions that affect corporate budgets in the multi-millions and multi-billions, wouldn't 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 make sense?
And if we spend roughly 13 years in primary and secondary schooling (plus more years in college), wouldn't 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 make sense?
Well, it does to Sarah Kuhn, who wrote the wonderful book 𝘛𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘓𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘛𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴.
By shining a light on the power of hands-on, embodied engagement, Sarah shows us how to harness our innate capacity for physical thinking in the classroom so students engage in creative learning that sticks.
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Hello there!
We’re Dr. Jane Hession and Ronan Healy. We’re a husband and wife team and co-founders of the service design studio How Might We.
We're passionate about Play and provide online and in-house training in the LEGO Serious Play method. If interested, please reach us at www.howmightwe.design
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LEGO Alert!
Around the one-hour mark, Sarah busts out LEGO to answer some questions.
Sarah who?
Sarah is an Educator, Author, Workshop Leader, Speaker, and Instigator. She is also a Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts Low-ell. Before beginning her thirty-year teaching career, Sarah received a PhD in Urban Studies and Planning from MIT and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Social Psychology from Harvard University.
Sarah offers hands-on workshops, book talks, and consulting on topics related to her book Transforming Learning Through Tangible Instruction: The Case for Thinking With Things. Sarah's long-term goal is to partner with interested faculty from across disciplines to develop curriculum modules that will support the teaching of key concepts using a Thinking With Things approach.
sk@thinkingwiththings.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-kuhn-84023913/
Book
Transforming Learning Through Tangible Instruction The Case For Thinking With Things Sarah Kuhn 2022
Websites
https://www.thinkingwiththings.com/
https://www.occupythehand.com/
Research Gate
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sarah-Kuhn-2
Additional Topics
https://www.bera.ac.uk/news/professor-anna-craft-founder-of-the-bera-creativity-in-education-sig
https://early-education.org.uk/friedrich-froebel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Heinrich_Pestalozzi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Montessori
https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
https://www.reggiochildren.it/en/reggio-emilia-approach/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Oppenheimer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer
Timestamps (0:00) - Introduction and Welcome
(2:35) - Dr. Sarah's Childhood Play and Maker Experiences
(8:03) - Defining Adult Playfulness and Creativity
(10:05) - Balancing Seriousness and Play in Work and Life
(18:45) - The Connection Between Play and Learning
(25:05) - How Hands-On Materials Enhance Learning
(35:07) - The Role of Embodied Cognition in Education
(41:54) - The Impact of Lego and Playful Activities in Classrooms
(52:23) - Incremental Changes and Creating Permission for Play
(1:16:05) - The Story of Crocheted Hyperbolic Planes and Closing Remarks