PEDAL Hub Library

Our second webinar focused on the potentials of play in interventions, and also during the pandemic, and was chaired by PEDAL’s Professor Paul Ramchandani. He was joined by Amy Jo Dowd, Head of Evidence at the Lego Foundation and PEDAL’s PhD student Krishna Kulkarni.

This webinar focused on how play can manifest in challenging settings, and was chaired by PEDAL’s Dr Jenny Gibson. She was joined by Dr Krutika Pau from Starlight Children’s Foundation, and Dr Fadi El Yamani from Right To Play. Starlight Children’s Foundation is the national children’s charity that exists to preserve childhood throughout serious illness. Dr Krutika Pau, Director of Children’s Services, shared insights into the challenges of play in hospitals and through the pandemic. Right To Play is an international non-profit organization that empowers vulnerable children to overcome the effects of war, poverty, and disease around the world through play. Dr Fadi El Yamani, Global Training & Capacity Building Specialist, discussed how Right To Play is using play in different challenging settings around the globe.

Social learning has been a large focus of early developmental psychology for the past three decades. While it reveals how culture is transmitted to young children, questions about how young children come up with their own ideas and learn for themselves have been largely ignored. This talk, with Dr Elena Hoicka from the University of Bristol, will present research showing that toddlers can be creative and come up with their own ideas. Elena will focus on toddlers’ creation of their own novel jokes and pretending, and toddlers’ divergent thinking with novel objects.

Join PEDAL in the conversation about the changing nature of childhood…are we really heading from ‘free range’ to ‘hot house’? Is the Children’s Commissioner for England correct when she calls for play on prescription and claims that children lead a “battery hen existence” (more info in the report ‘Playing Out’)? Chaired by one of PEDAL’s lead researchers, Dr Jenny Gibson, the panel of speakers comprise of: Kathryn Lester (University of Sussex – an academic who researches anxiety in children); Nicola Butler (Chair of Play England’s Board of Trustees and Director of Hackney Play Association – managing Homerton Grove Adventure Playground); Tim Gill (a researcher, writer and consultant on childhood). Stephen Mitchell (Chair, Parkour UK & consultant) Come and join us for this lively and topical debate.

Professor Greenfield is a Professor of Psychology and Pediatrics at the University of Miami. His work is positioned at the interface of research, policy and practice at the international, national and local level. His research examines school readiness with at-risk and dual language learners, with a specific focus on early science education. Science has the power to engage early childhood educators and young children in hands-on, minds-on, fun and engaging experiences that increase the quality of teaching as well as provide young children with critical problem-solving skills and improved learning in multiple school readiness areas. In this PEDAL research seminar, Professor Greenfield discusses the role of science in early education in relation to research, as well as current policy and practice. This lecture forms part of the PEDAL Research Seminar series http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/centres/pedal @PEDALCam

Listen to Dr Vicky Leong, Dr Ciara Lavery and Dr Melissa Scarpate talk about playing with infants and toddlers in this webinar hosted by PlayFutures.

The University of Cambridge and the LEGO Foundation has explored how learning through play helps children develop better writing skills. You can read about the project in more detail here: https://goo.gl/Wk9aef