Learning Through Play

Today we're talking with Dr. Tracy Donohue. Join our guest as they reflect on their professional experiences and how they have prepared them to work with teacher education students who are learning to teach through play. As you listen, we invite you to also reflect on the background you bring to education, how you value play and what you would be willing to investigate to challenge yourself in these areas.

Introduction Music: David Biedenbender

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Transcript

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Tracy Donohue: 0:00

We have this big conversation over and over again. It is not a dichotomy learn versus play that actually learning is play.

Ashley O'Neil: 0:09

Okay, now we're recording

Julie Cunningham: 0:14

so welcome to Teach Wonder!

Ashley O'Neil: 0:20

Yes, Welcome to teach wonder podcast hosted by Ashley O'Neill and Julie Cunningham. My freshman year of college I had two roommates. Roommate one had goals of going pre med. So she was taking zero writing courses her first semester, but had Calc, bio and chemistry all at the same time. Roommate two and I both wanted to be teachers. So we had a broader array of classes, including history and communications and Spanish. And we were both also in this introductory teacher. Of course, the bulk of our homework actually came from that teacher course we'd been pretty familiar with school, and had a handle on our other classes we'd never taught before and this teacher class had us in first grade classrooms the second week doing 30 minute lessons on social studies. So every week we were preparing new lessons for them. I'll never forget the dichotomy of homework in our tiny dorm room. So roommate one header stacks of calc notes and flashcards for bio and a bulletin board of equations. Roommate two, and they were using markers on the back of cereal boxes to make houses for lesson as neighborhoods. You'd often walk into a room and see roommate two and I practicing our lessons with each other Oh roommate one borrowed our pencils to color code flashcards. But you'd also often see roommate to an eye on the couch. Using those color coded flashcards to quiz roommate one eye she colored streetlamps, and stop signs to go with our cereal box houses. Now College definitely became more rigorous for me in that traditional sense. I'm no stranger to flashcards and late night study sessions myself and roommate one did take an art class that resulted in her creating a wire squirrel that was so intense it affected our TV signal. But that first semester of freshman year, that scene of studying for bio lesson planning for first grade of my roommate coloring while doing flashcard review, it is one of my strongest memories of that year. And it rather perfectly sets the stage for our conversation this week. We're about to jump into this interview, and spoiler it's about learning and play. This conversation talks about the tenants of play, why it's vital for all people, regardless of our age or grade. We talked about how students at CMU are learning to incorporate play as future educators. And we hear so many thoughtful and helpful examples of play in the classroom. But before we do that, we're starting this interview by having our guests share her background. And we're doing that because it illustrates a point that matters in this conversation. Our background and history create a lens for us. And new experiences and opportunities can sharpen, adjust and filter that lens. As you listen to the experiences and opportunities that build our guests professional career. Think about your own and how it may shape the way you are currently viewing your classroom and this interview. Here's Julie.

Tracy Donohue: 3:09

So Tracy, if you would please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background as a faculty member here. Okay, so my name is Tracy Donahue and I this is my second year as an assistant professor here at Central Michigan University. And I think it would behoove myself to get tell you like pre central if that's okay. So I started I as a third grade teacher in Raleigh, North Carolina. I've only ever taught in title one magnet schools. So I started at the visual and performing arts, school teaching third grade, and we got to teach electives. So I taught the basic core curriculum and then four days a week, our children, actually k five, but my electives were three, five, they would switch classes, they would sign up for electives and change. And so I taught a sewing elective. I taught a history elective, I taught a shaping up elective, all kinds of different things. It was super fun, because you also got to know kids around the school, outside of your classroom. And so in that process with a good friend of mine, who we grew up in teaching together, we got our masters and reading education, I thought I wanted to be a small group literacy teacher. And we got our masters at NC State together. And during that time, because funding changes every year with Title One, I became a part time math coach and part time literacy intervention teacher. So I was going from teaching small group, kindergarten literacy to fifth grade classroom math coaching, and every year it kind of shifted, and I got to play within my work in terms of co teaching. Everyone is on a continuum of where they'll be accepting of that. I worked at Powell at that one school for about 10 years. Ironically, we're talking about play today. I've been looking back into my old stomping grounds to share with the press sentation with student group here on campus, and now they are not a visual and performing arts school. They're building ingenuity through play school. And they're the only kid elementary school in the country, I think with that theme. So I reached out to them because the assistant principal is a good a former friend of mine. And so they have a play integration specialists with her PhD that works on stuff. So I was like, put, I just wanted to reconnect with them. So I'm hoping to talk with her. But I started there and worked in some capacity in instructional coaching after my years in third grade, and realized I really liked working with adult learners. And then I moved to a different magnet school within Raleigh to for one year, and then we moved out of state, but it was connected with NC State, and it was an engineering magnet school. And they had allocated it was a low, I've only worked at low performing schools, but it they allocated a quarter of their Race to the Top funds to the school and clean slate started all kinds of new things. I was the intervention coordinator for that school. So I worked with the teachers, K five, and then I was also a literacy coach with that. So during that time, I also had the opportunity to teach at a community college developmental reading, I also thought I like to dabble sounds like let me try this. Again, working with adult learners doing a lot of similar things we do in third grade reading classrooms with adults, I would make these adults who Some are older than me act out work new vocabulary words. And I learned it feels silly, but it's an element of play in that as well. We moved for family reasons to Iowa for a couple of years. And I taught a community college class on developmental reading there. And then I started looking and kind of wanting to spread my wings a little bit. And I got a job as a literacy consultant for the Iowa reading research center. And so there I caught I did a lot of things. One big project is working with families in literacy and trying to I blogged about literacy practices with my children, you know, bird watching, reading about birds, all kinds of things. I also met a lot of really smart people around the state who had their doctorate degrees. And I was like, I don't know if I could do that. And then I couldn't put I can't pile up any more student debt. And they they all were like, well, you should look into fellowships, and you should look into this. So then two years later, we moved here, I had three kids, a tiny newborn. And I was I worked for them doing their social media for a while and I was like, What am I going to do with my life? I don't know any. I have no teaching network here in Michigan. And so I applied to some programs, and I got into Michigan State. And thankfully, it was the best place for me to be because I taught one early literacy class. And then I was a field instructor. So I got to go in schools and support student teachers. And you know, watched one of them put worms in kids hands and get my hands dirty, which felt good to be back in schools. I spent five years at Michigan State, I got to teach us a lot of different courses in literacy. And then I realized, oh, no, I really like teaching early math. So I went to that side. And so I'm I'm kind of dabble in a lot of subject areas as a as a elementary, early childhood teacher does anyway. And so I'm honored to be here. Now this position came available with the new banding, there's a pre K through third grade band. And so this job came available and my advisor was like this is like made for you. And so I I feel so honored to be here because one of the things in the job description was talking about using developmentally appropriate practices, especially with a focus on pre K through third grade across content areas. And so I was able to hone in on teaching pre service teachers those skills at Michigan State and then here we are. And so with that they were asked me what I wanted to teach. And luckily enough I have to give a shout out to Joellen Lu Seder, Dr. Lu Seder, creat had just created this learning the content areas through play. I believe she had taught it online once but nobody had taught it face to face first. And so I they had me less classes. This was one that appealed to me. And so I have been lucky enough and because of like shuffling around, I've actually been the one to teach it the only person to teach it. This is my third time on campus. She has taught the online version. And so I have built upon her work and I think of her often I like to share when I have pictures of my students work with her because it brings me joy. And I hope it brings her joy as well. So

Ashley O'Neil: 9:38

So all of these diverse experiences give Tracy insight into the students that she impacts at all levels, the Early Childhood elementary students, her undergrad pre service teachers, both as the students they are now and as the teachers that they're going to be. Our conversation pivoted here and we're going to get into the work that Tracy does with students. And it's focused heavily on Les, but Julian, I know that that word has a ton of personal contextual meaning for everyone, your own childhood movies, commercials, toys, your own kids, potentially, they all mix together in your brain to create this definition of play. So I asked Tracy to think about how she defines play to set the tone for our conversation.

Tracy Donohue: 10:21

I so it's funny, because I'm sitting, that training that I had to push this back for is positive psychology. And we were talking about flow theory today. And so that's where I think of play. For me, I tell my students I play when I drive, I play looking at exits, I'm just fiddling around, tinkering, in my mind. So play can be tinkering, it can be I'm fully on flow mode and focused in something, it can be as much or as little at different times. So it, it's hard for me to define exactly what it is. And it doesn't always, it sometimes is hard. And I think sometimes we think of play is just playing with dolls, like you said, are plays playing and dramatic play. And I have to dress up and I have to look silly to play. But actually, some of us are just sitting, I'm going how many more exits do I have, okay, if I go up one speed, you know, one mile per hour how many either and I'm just sitting there problem solving in my mind that has played to me. So I'm not sure if that's a textbook definition.

Ashley O'Neil: 11:22

What we love about this definition is that it's not tidy, and textbook. And in this instance, that's really helpful. You see, there's no mention of specific tip materials or age here in this conversation. And the definition that Dr. Donahue gave us is removed from a specific tool or program or toy. In fact, that whole playing with the speed and location to make a game out of the commute home, that is all in your head, really. So what Tracy is talking about here is an approach to an activity instead of a specific magic activity itself. I remember my new parent brain looking for the perfect example of play on Instagram. And that was often brought to these pretty open ended toys or these activity ideas. And sometimes they worked for my child and sometimes not, because through lots of trial and error with my own kid, I realized that you can have the same materials and same steps for an activity. But doing that activity in and of itself does not guarantee that it's play. For example, the days when I'm singing and auditioning for Broadway while I dust, my house does something different in my brain than when I'm aggressively wiping the bookshelves before a guest arrives. Both are cleaning, both use the same tools, but they are not both play. So now let's talk a little bit more about that textbook definition. With as a mindset or an approach, Tracy is going to share the five characteristics of play that she uses in her class. And she'll share them with examples. So let's list them on their own. First, we have joy, meaningful learning, iteration, social interaction, and active engagement. Back to Tracy,

Tracy Donohue: 12:58

I'm digging deeper in these what I call characteristics of play. And I look at them as my students I say, Okay, pull out a literacy activity, find one online. And let's look at where are these characteristics of play? And if they're not there, or they can't come from this? How could you modify that task? Because we know they're all going to go on Google and find stuff I do all the time. And but how can I tinker with this play with this to make it have more playful opportunity? So there's joy. So I think there's a lot of number of things that can bring us joy that might not look like what we consider plays being a child based thing, meaningful learning? Am I learning something from this? I mean, if we think about mountain biking, we've talked about mountain biking before that is play, you're playing in the woods, you're like, Okay, I can't go down this rock formation today. But next time, I might try this one rock, and then the next time, you know, and then that brings me to iteration. So and I'm sure in the makerspace, you'll see a lot of iterative processes. But let me try it this time, see what happens. Let me try it this time and see what happens. And then social interaction. I mean, we play with our friends, even if we're just sitting on a couch talking, and then active engagement, am I actively engaged. And there's a whole continuum I just had in this positive psychology training about what that can look like, too. So yeah, play looks different for everybody. And it also makes me think of my students, sometimes, especially at the beginning of the semester, I'll take in a bunch of tubs I think you've seen me with my cafeteria card. I'll take in tubs Magna tiles, or animals or just anything because I have access to all these great things. And I'll say, Okay, we're gonna have unstructured play. I'm gonna turn music on and y'all just play. And it depends on the students. Last semester, I had people that go yes. And they just dive right in this semester. I have a bigger class, and maybe that leads them to be more reticent. But I have some that just look at me, and they're like, can she just get on with it? Like we're adults here, you know, and I can see that and then so then we talk Talk about that. And does it feel weird to sit here and play? Okay, let me get the tiles out. And let me just pretend to play. And some of them still don't kind of get past that even. But it's nice to watch them kind of grow and realize, like, oh, I should be playing in my life, too. And that was going to be sort of my follow up question is, when you set up scenarios in your classrooms, students, do you look for your scenarios that you offer them to have those five components, the joy and the iteration and the engagement and the missing two of them. But those 5am When they offer opportunities to young children, do you expect them to cooperate, or five, or some of the five or or I sounds like open play without necessarily calling out those five areas is fine as well. So I have a hard- So this is a there's like a balance to it. Because once you start saying, I need you to incorporate all five of that my Type A students want to go check, check check, and what sounds like meaningful learning might not quite be meaningful learning. So I, I do ask them to reflect on them for sure. And I'm evolving with this framework. It's I've adapted some pieces here and there with that, but what I do is in their assignments, they have their first assignment, the only one that we've turned in so far is this game transfiguration that Joellen designed, and it is such a beautiful opportunity, they take a game, it could be beer pong, it could be monopoly, and they adapt it to be developmentally appropriate and kid friendly for a child that they're working with. So I should show I have so many beautiful photos, and I can show you another time. But Show and Tell is easier when I can just show you what I have. They created. One of my students did this. She's working with a third grader, this Kingdom Hearts monopoly, she painted this board. So even that was played in itself. And then this is more simple, but she created a multiplication golf game. And this one I love if you've played What do you mean, she created she took photos and different things. But the question was when you get to be the line leader for the day, but then she played that with kids and realize they don't even get that like this the sarcasm and stuff. So so then we reflect on that getting to know you Jenga she painted and and so they do this, and then they implement it, and then they reflect on that. And that is kind of before we really get into a lot of content. So they're really I'm really just looking to see can they look at what is and and I don't like putting developmental things in a box. So we look at like generally, would this work for a three year old, but all three year olds are different, especially some kids in the CLL are going to I watched one little boy Count 14. And then she goes what would one more and he goes 50. And I wouldn't expect if I don't know if he's foreign yet to be able to do that. But you know, they are pretty sophisticated counters. And so then they do four major, I don't want to say major foreign learning activities. And I think from being in the makerspace y'all have inspired me to not quite make them so discreet in terms of literacy, math, science, social studies. So while they do these four, they have to design a learning activity. And so my first semester I did that, they created this, they implemented it, they reflected the typical teacher assignment. I have changed this, modified it a little bit because I want them to develop fun learning opportunities. But I also want them to see that that can happen in any moment, like we were saying, in thick conversations is what we call it or open conversations or extended however you want to do it. So we do a lot of practice of I've been doing fish bowls, and so they'll be playing magnet tiles and I'll say okay, for my outsiders, what skill Do you want me to focus on in here? And then I go in and say, Okay, we were doing rhyming, okay, I see an orange tile. Can you tell me something that rhymes with orange? And they always look at me, I'm like, it doesn't have to be a real word. And we're just implementing whatever literacy skill they choose. And we talk about how that can be that is just as meaningful as this activity that I planned. And a lot of times those ones that I plan fail or not, or the kid goes, No, I want to do it this way. And so you're off. So I don't I want them to learn some flexibility and fluidity. And so they do one of those for each. And then when when they reflect they have to think of those characteristics of play. And then also, especially in math, I have attributes of high quality math tasks, and these are things I want to be looking for because my early childhood people they love some patterning. They love it. They love some colors. They love some shapes. They don't love doing number activity. So I am making them do number activities. Because what I see, as I look at just people I've worked with, in general is number sense, opportunities are missing, kids are gonna get patterning, they're gonna get all those things. But the number is huge. So I just kind of, like we do shapes, we do those things, but I say no patterns. And anyway, so high quality tasks. And I asked them to reflect like how, or think about that when they're planning and then science, I have them think about the characteristics of play, but our big mantra is notice and wonder. And then you inspire me to think about story throughout. And so when we were here last semester, is create a story for what you built, create a story for this. So we've really incorporating literacy throughout. And then my take on social studies, because their take is Social Studies is government social studies is communities. So we talk about, I think of social studies as listening to other people and learning from them. So come in your community and just other people's stories.

Ashley O'Neil: 21:06

They have a lot of thick and actionable suggestions and ideas from Dr. Donahue in the form of these kinds of stories and examples from her class, which is great. She discusses thinking about play in different content areas across different contexts, and the considerations that go into all of these things. Now, she's going to talk about another key consideration. Our content

Tracy Donohue: 21:27

is heavily focused on equitable and inclusive play as well. So I should say that all of our work in this semester is grounded in is this accessible? I'm working with Mason, I know Mason can do this activity. But I want to think about if I'm in a classroom with a bunch of three year olds, would all three year olds be able to do this? And what modifications might I have to make? And we did an activity, we do an activity, I think the very first day where they we build with spaghetti, Old Spaghetti and old marshmallows. But you know, it occurred to me or maybe from my reading, I don't know that actually, children with food insecurities that can be harmful to some children. So it's not necessary. Like I said, my dad would laugh at me and be like, Okay, you can't play with food. No, it's not that it's knowing the people I'm working with. And knowing, okay, this is harmful for this one kid. We're going to use toothpicks and playdough this time, you know, stuff like that. And that's fine for all kids done, right? Like, okay, it has to be right, and marshmallows. And if it's harmful for one kid, it's not worth it, I won't do it. Right. I just want to say I appreciate how much you're modeling for your students what you want them to do when they work with children, because I think that doesn't always happen when we're training new teachers, and so not as a criticism of anyone else on this program. But I just, I just think that's really nice when you say, and then we do fish bowls, and we talk about us and ask them to reflect on I think that that's so important for them to see, I think often in education has been my experience that we don't make our thought processes, explicit to people that are learning to teach. And in doing so we make some of it look easier or simpler than it is. Because we've learned how to do it already. And probably that's true of any skill, right? Like lots of people make mountain biking look super easy. And it's probably true of any skill. But I just think that's really nice that all the modeling and the explicit decision making that you're doing with them, thank you. And I'm lucky I get to teach something fun, too. So I, my class is fun. But also the topic is fun. And I, I tried to in this, another class I teach is it's such a loaded title. It's called Best Practices of early childhood settings. I tried to model as much as I can in a bear classroom out there, what it's like to experience. So we have morning meeting every time we have class. And it might seem silly after a while, we have read aloud every time because I tell him if I drop that than that. What does that say to you?

Ashley O'Neil: 24:01

So you mentioned you just touched on earlier about making play inclusive and accessible. So can you talk a little bit about what conversations you have with students? I'm particularly thinking of like a narrow, diverse population. So that's my like angle for this. But maybe maybe that's not what you're talking about. But how do you have conversations with them about honoring the type of play that they might do? So that you've got your bubble of generally and then a guy or other bubble? How do you have conversations about the type of play that they do and honoring that and working? I hear a lot of you saying like developing flexibility with for the adult students, right like for your future teachers, developing that flexibility. So how do you have that conversation with them about following suit children's

Tracy Donohue: 24:44

needs, so we do have some specific conversations to maybe underrepresented populations especially I teach in a very not diverse racially, population here, but we talk about inclusivity In accessibility for all, but I don't know who they're going to interact with. So it's more of a big ideas that I'm thinking of. And the point I try to stress is you have to know who you're working with first, you wouldn't just like the food insecurity thing. And it's getting to know your students and what their needs are getting to know the children and their families, learning about the children learning what works at home. So I would, we haven't had specific conversations to nourish neurodivergent populations, however, I hope that by me stressing the importance of understanding their needs and what they need, that they are able to translate that to really anybody.

Ashley O'Neil: 25:44

Sure. One of the next questions that we asked Tracy was about the differences she noticed in pre service teachers, and their mindset going into this class, based on the grade levels that they thought they were going to teach. So for example, then students who anticipated teaching preschool, kindergarten in first grade approach things a little bit differently than students who planned on teaching an older grade level,

Tracy Donohue: 26:07

we have this big conversation over and over again, it is not a dichotomy, learn versus play, that actually learning is play. And so if you think about Minecraft, older kids like Minecraft, it's building, it's got playful opportunities. And so helping them kind of open up what we said about like that definition of play, I think is important. I personally am on a mission for people to also see early childhood as through third grade, because a lot of times we hear early childhood, oh, that's play, and we think of birth through five. And the definition is up to eight years old, which is that through third grade, in my opinion, and then I would argue adults like to play because I see it in my class all the time. I think high school. I think my middle schoolers that they're middle school, my own children play more than they did in fifth grade. Just you know, I think you have to be silly to appeal to them, I'm guessing. And they I think all of us need an element of shake off the seriousness and have some joy and some silliness.

Ashley O'Neil: 27:12

Some joy and some silliness. That's the ask this week. Remember those five tenants, joy, meaningful learning, iteration, social interaction, and active engagement? Let's focus on to how are you going to approach or infuse a task with joy and active engagement this week, it could be your Monday morning commute your phonics lesson or that will last 30 minutes before the end of the day with your students. We'll be back with the rest of our interview with Tracy in two weeks, but we'd love to hear what you've been up to always feel free to email us at cs@cms.edu ce se at C M I C h.edu. In two weeks stay tuned to hear more examples and some explicit design choices that set Tracy students up for meaningful and iterative interactions. This has been teach wonder