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Rice who has considered the role of play in post-secondary education suggests
that 'playful learning can be effective in motivating and improving student engage-
ment, promoting creative thinking towards learning and developing approaches
towards multi-disciplinary learning' (Rice
2009
). Rice also observes that a playful
approach towards learning and knowledge can facilitate ontological change within
students. Such change is pivotal in assisting students to transcend normative disci-
plinary boundaries and reach their full potential as creative practitioners. As such,
the adoption of play as a learning approach in combination with the development of
a safe space that encourages risk-taking and exploration is core to the pedagogical
foundations of the degree.
Whilst less attention has been paid to playfulness in adults, it is recognised to
exist. For example, adults have been known to evidence playful behaviour even
when they are engaged in practical or serious activities (Bologh
1976
) as well as in
the workplace (Csikszentmihalyi and LeFevre
1989
). This perhaps indicates that
such activities might be accomplished quite playfully at times (Bowman
1987
).
Caldwell (
2003
) argues that lifelong play is a means of continuing transformation,
and Göncü and Perone (
2005
) have found that play and improvisation amongst
adult learners foster community as a result of developing dialogue, trust, reciproc-
ity, sharing and negotiation.
Play, creativity and community are linked through the common ground of diver-
gent thinking, a process that generates a variety of ideas and associations to a given
problem. There is a variety of research evidence that suggests that play facilitates
both divergent thinking and creativity (Russ
2003
), both of which are considered to
be of considerable importance in the development of Creative Technologists. Our
approach to implementing a playful educational paradigm also draws on an under-
standing of cognitive development. Again, much of the research in this fi eld draws
on childhood development which has emerged as an ongoing area of interest since
the work of Piaget (
1953
). Bruner (
1977
) argues that a child of any age is capable of
understanding complex information and explains how this is possible through the
concept of the spiral curriculum. This involves the structuring of information so that
complex ideas can be taught at a simplifi ed level fi rst and then revisited at more
complex levels later on to lead to children being able to solve problems by them-
selves. Bruner also proposes that learners construct their own knowledge and do this
by organising and categorising information using a coding system (Bruner
1961
).
Bruner believes that the most effective way to develop a coding system is to dis-
cover it rather than being told by the teacher. The concept of discovery learning
implies that students construct their own knowledge for themselves. Meyer and
Land (
2013
) also acknowledge that this process of change through learning is also
a process of loss, in the sense that gaining new insights on the world may involve a
'loss' of one's old self.
Many authors have proposed different development phases that can be mapped
to an ability to process complex information in different ways, typically divided
into a number of phases. The full-spectrum model divides the development of an
