Simon Grey and guest John Lean on playful learning

In this podcast, Catherine and Mike discuss playful learning with Simon and guest John.

Simon Grey is the programme director for the Computer Science for Games Programming degree courses at the University of Hull and is an advocate for creating playful and fun learning experiences for students. He also runs regular board games sessions for staff to help encourage collaboration between cross-disciplinary groups.

John Lean is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he leads the award-winning co-curricular experiential programme Rise. His background is in philosophy teaching and education innovation, and he focuses on using play to develop agency and democracy in university students. In his spare time he plays too many videogames, drinks too much coffee and tries to encourage a four-year old to listen to Steely Dan.

Simon: “If you believe that every module has a goal and rules, voluntary participation and feedback, [then] it’s already a game!”

John: “As an education philosophy, it’s about empowerment and agency and having the freedom to do things differently.”

Useful links and references

• The Playful Learning Association site is the best place to start for anyone who wants to get involved. Details of the conference on there too: https://playfullearningassoc.co.uk/
• John's quote "playing a game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles" is from Bernard Suits' book The Grasshopper, John's favourite work on play.
• Simon's definition of a game is from Dr Jane McGonigal's book “Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World”
• and also mentioned by Simon: Ryan and Deci’s theory of motivation – self-determination theory (Ryan, R.M. and Deci, E.L., 2024. Self-determination theory. In Encyclopedia of quality of life and well-being research (pp. 6229-6235). Cham: Springer International Publishing)

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