This article reflects on observations as a dance pedagogue, adapting Gilbert's BrainDance to a range of learning and teaching opportunities in intergenerational classroom contexts. Initially applied in an early childhood education context, BrainDance provided a point of departure into conversations and observations with teachers on how the…

Graduate students writing on their own often struggle with knowledge production and identity conflicts. Conversely, writing with others presents its own set of challenges, as collaborators struggle to define roles and expectations. To systematically foster and teach collaborative writing practices for graduate students, we performed a self study…

Education doctoral programs have an essential role to play in this moment of American history, as we train, teach, guide, and prepare education professionals to learn, unlearn, and lead as antiracist education activists. EdD program faculty and administrators sit in critical roles and must examine our own antiracist beliefs, while also…

This paper captures thinking around the design of a technology-focused play space for children that is on a university campus. Drawing upon characteristics of play and the importance of the goals and values that shape contexts, the opportunity to develop a space designed for children's digital play required careful conceptualization. Children's…

Contemporary education policy--which fixates on "the impact agenda" and tailors academic pursuits to narrow utilitarian (read "economic" and "employment") aims--emphasizes measurable results starting as early as kindergarten. Whether the education experience fosters anything approximating a love of learning seems to…

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected deep reflection in higher education classrooms: how do we attract and retain students to (temporary but nevertheless increasing) online learning experiences, how do we keep them at our universities and colleges, and how do we give students a learning experience from which they will remember meaningful…

In this article, I explore the impact of receiving mentorship into research and theory of the field that was guided by a social constructivist learning lens. I reflect on the ways that my conception of research and research agenda were framed subconsciously by early experiences investigating my secondary mathematics teaching practice under the…

"Radically Responsive Music Schools" is a philosophical reimagining of music higher education culture from the ground up, arguing that holistic cultural change is the key factor needed for music schools to prepare 21st-century graduates for contemporary challenges. The author discusses how university and conservatory music programs can…

The authors discuss assortative mating, the tendency--important for increased genetic variation--of individuals to mate with the phenotypically similar at rates greater than chance. Influenced by many factors--physical characteristics like height and weight and demographic elements like behavior and attitudes, economic status and education, church…

In this "Reflection on Practice" paper we reflect on an early childhood Work Integrated Learning course redesign that explored new ways of developing and applying playfulness theory to higher education instructional approaches. Our experience was that the higher education students required more support to deepen their understanding of…

Play provides an opportunity for students to learn information and concepts in an active format while facilitating different ways of learning. This puzzle activity is designed to increase student engagement, leverage different learning styles, help students make connections in communication theories, and enhance memory of important communication…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to re-center playfulness as a humanizing approach in teacher education. As teachers navigate the current moment of heightened control, surveillance, and systemic inequity, these proposed moves in teacher education can be transgressive. Rather than play as relegated to childhood or infancy, what does it look…

The benefits of performance-based classroom approaches to teaching Shakespeare have been well-documented in pedagogical scholarship. This paper is an effort to push beyond the performance-based classroom and begin to incorporate ideas from the field of performance studies into a new pedagogical approach that capitalizes on my institution's…

This article is part of an ongoing series by the authors and the Deep Play Research Group, which focuses on the intersection of creativity and technology in education. In this article, Dr. Anthony Brandt, professor of composition and theory at Rice University shares his thoughts about the study of creativity. He uses his experiences as a musician…

The first year writing "jumbo" is a large enrollment composition course with ninety students and nine embedded writing mentors. The "jumbo" structure "emerged from an 'entanglement' of the institutional environment and intentional innovation" (Jaxon). Currently taught with a human rights focus, but with other…