Navigating proxy failures in education: Learning from human and animal play.

The notion of proxy failure provides considerable insight into educational processes, and in childhood education has the potential to elucidate known problems stemming from the early implementation of overly regulated educational regimes. This commentary expands on play and how its relation to learning provides a useful perspective on how activities based on nongoal-oriented interactions can lead to desired outcomes.

How young children's play is shaped through common iPad applications: a study of 2 and 4-5 year-olds.

Digital devices such as iPads are prevalent in children's play from an early age. How this shapes young children's play is an area of considerable debate without any clear consensus on how different forms of play are brought into the iPad interaction. In this study, we examined 98 play activities of children in two preschool settings, featuring 2 and 4-5-year-olds, their play with iPads and non-digital artefacts. Three analytical approaches were used: an index built on a digital play framework [Bird, Jo, and Susan Edwards. 2015. "Children Learning to Use Technologies Through Play: A Digital Play Framework." British Journal of Educational Technology 46 (6): 1149-1160. doi:10.1111/bjet.12191 ], a quantitative description of the index, and a qualitative interaction analysis of children's play. Results show how play with iPads is characterised as less ludic than play with other artefacts, and diverges from the age-typical norms of play. We discuss what these results might mean for children's play in contemporary early childhood settings and for children's learning.

Guiding Preschool Play for Cultural Learning: Preschool Design as Cultural Niche Construction.

This paper explores how preschools can be purposefully designed to aid cultural learning through guided play practices. In recent literature, there has been a renowned interest in the role of the exogenous environment in psychological processes, including learning. The idea that the design of preschools can meaningfully be seen as cultural niche construction and that guided play practices in these environments can aid the preparation for cultural action is promoted, and a theoretical framework is presented. The empirical data draw from a synthesis from three ethnographic research sites in multilingual communities, and data are used to explore how cultural affordances are used in designed environments as part of guided play practices. The results indicate how niche construction of affordances aid cultural learning and is achieved through both direct guided play interaction between teachers and children and also in the way of the indirect design of environments that is incorporated in children's peer play. It is discussed what this means for play research as well as for guided play practices that aim to promote cultural learning.