What is physical education and why does it exist? Despite its relatively long and storied history, consensus about the main purpose of physical education remains minimal. This article explores three questions, developed by Jim Collins in his best-selling book Good to Great, to help organizations identify a hedgehog concept, or primary reason for…

This paper reviews three classic theorists' writing on games, learning, and development. Piaget, Vygotsky, and Bruner all wrote about games and play as important to thinking and learning. This review attempts to synthesize their perspectives as a means to revisit underused theoretical perspectives on the role of games in education. The views of…

Creating play environments for children usually requires groups of adults working together. An extensive scientific literature describes how groups function to achieve shared goals in general terms, and groups attempting to empower play may find this literature useful. Design principles for managing natural resources, identified by Elinor Ostrom…

The title of this article borrows loosely from the philosopher Nelson Goodman, whose classic essay "When is Art" addresses context and symbolic function. The discussion in this article concerns an entirely different matter: identifying moments when a learner's creativity is sparked in school art programs. The word "creativity" usually enters…

Children's right to play is formally enshrined in Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). However, few research studies have explored children's experiences of play from an explicit rights-based perspective. Using children's views to illustrate the multi-dimensional relationship Article 31 holds with other…

Young children spontaneously engage in a variety of one-to-one correspondence activities during play. The present study tested whether one of these activities--pairing objects with containers--supported the development of numerical equivalence judgments. Three-year-olds were given sets of toys to take home. In one condition, the toys were…

This article explores how student behaviour and interactions change when teachers use "producing" as a primary pedagogical strategy (Papert, 1980; Ejsing-Duun and Karoff, 2014). Based on observed student and teacher actions and responses, as well as students' production, this paper emphasizes the importance of understanding how students…

A new approach to moral education using blended learning has been developed. This approach involves 10 scenarios that are designed as a web-based game and serves as a basis for group moral-consequence-based reasoning, which is developed based on a hypothetical-deductive model. The aim of the study was to examine the changes in students' blended…

Considering the essential role that socio-motivational relationships at school play with respect to achievement motivation, this study examined the differences between students with a low school self-concept and students with a high school self-concept in a large sample of 7th and 8th grade students (N= 1088; M[subscript Age]= 13.7) in secondary…

This study evaluated a technology-based early intervention for social communication skills in pre-schoolers in a randomised controlled trial. Participants were 54 children aged under 6 years with a diagnosis of autism, assigned to either intervention or control conditions. The app engaged children, who played consistently, regardless of…

In Kenya there is still a high population of children either born with or who develop physical challenges. These children are often neglected and most do not join school at the expected age. In joining school they encounter several difficulties in their play and learning activities. These children with physical challenges have developmental needs…

In the wake of multiple activity program eliminations and frequent downgrading of activity programs nationwide, the question to be addressed is how we can draw upon our interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and intercultural understandings of human movement to construct physical activity programs for the future that might withstand the test of…

This study reports on the effects of a mobile game designed in conjunction with an art museum to develop children's understanding of line, shape, and color. Four researchers (two graduate students and two professors at a private university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States) examined 8 children, ages 6 to 13, for conceptual change in…

Drawing on a qualitative case study of four Head Start sites, this article analyzes a number of governing patterns that have emerged and grown in the field of early childhood education and care in the United States. This article specifically highlights a government's enhanced oversight and management of Head Start programs by mandating a school…

It is difficult to get a good grasp of the topic of kindergarten entry assessment because there are such great differences in the purpose for the instruments, how they are constructed, and how the data is used. Even so, in many states and communities, there is cause for concern. Until the paradigm of education moves from a preoccupation with…