 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||
 |
 |
|
|||||
 |
|
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
Designing for Play By Mary
Sinker and Ian Russell Published in Hand to Hand (Association of Youth Museums, USA) Summer 1998 We've all walked into exhibits packed with busy children—children figuring out how this works and what can be done with that; learning what they can do with all those pieces; children playing alone and children playing together; children negotiating and sharing roles and spare parts with others: children at play. Yet, in the same museum we'll enter an exhibit that people pass through quickly. A child may buzz from one component to another; a parent may direct the child into activity, but the happy hum of play is missing. What's the difference? What is it that draws visitors of all ages to an area and elicits sustained playful activity? What are the deliberate judgements, choices, and decisions that help a designer create a play-filled environment? In a children's museum, carefully designed environments inspire children's learning through play. As we design exhibits, we tightly knit together two strands: an understanding of children's play behavior, and an understanding of how design influences behavior. Me Children's play from birth through the school years is inextricably woven into their growing sense of self. "Who am I?" "Who am I in relation to you?" "Who am I in relation to the environment?" All are developmental queries that occupy young children. As they play, children formulate answers to these most basic definitions of self, and, in environments that foster this inquiry, positive play experiences help provide answers. "Who am I when I'm driving the train? Ah, there's a mirror that lets me see how important I'm feeling." "Who am I when I'm dancing? That video capture is me!" People of all ages show special interest in exhibit components relating to their own faces, their appearance or their physical abilities. Frozen shadows, projected images, mirrors everywhere, places to record one's voice or face—the museum environment can provide many opportunities for the child to get to know herself again and again. My life Making connections with what is already known is a fundamental aspect of play and learning. Children play what they know, and use their play as a springboard to newer, higher levels of thought—and of play. What children know best are themselves, the places and people in their immediate environment, and the natural world. In providing for children's play and playful learning, it is wise to begin where the child is and carefully ramp the play and learning from that strong base. Thus, exhibits must be designed to accommodate a wide developmental range, and indeed it is this kind of multi-level functionality that is a principal characteristic of hands-on exhibits. During the design development process, proposed components must continually be assessed to ensure that there are areas just right for a two or three year old who is experiencing things in a very sensory way; for four and five year olds who are problem solving; or for a school-age child who is intent on inquiry and experimentation. Me and you Sharing, cooperating, turn-taking, negotiating, learning to lead and to follow are all skills learned during play. Children's museums offer children unique opportunities for interaction with others. For school groups, the museum environment—so different from the classroom—invites new play patterns. For children arriving with their parents or caregivers, both the people they meet and the environment present challenges as they learn how to work toward common goals with strangers. The most well-rounded social play occurs between children who know one another well, but careful observation in children's museums suggests that perhaps it is the anonymity of other museum goers that encourages children to "try out" their emerging social skills with strangers. This merits further research. Certainly there is remarkably little conflict on the museum floor: children do a surprisingly good job of becoming friends for a brief encounter. While some museum activities, touch screens for example, are mainly used by one person, if there is room for over-the-shoulder viewers, this can become a group activity. Increasingly, museums deliberately design interactive experiences that won't work unless visitors collaborate and communicate with one another. Important details, like mounting table-top activities to a round table, help all participants feel they have equal access to materials and provide the means for people to feel part of the group. Adults and children: playing together Often, a child's richest play occurs when an adult is involved, and the best museum exhibits encourage adult-child interaction. The adult can encourage the child when she has a problem, make suggestions for new scripts or plans when the child has exhausted her own repertoire, join the child as a playmate, and reflectively talk about what the child has done, translating actions into words. Adult-child interaction enriches the experience for both, and helps build strong emotional bonds. Group dynamics within families using museum interactives can be wonderfully complex and multi-layered. Subtly different messages can be communicated at a variety of cognitive levels. Carefully written labels can enhance intergenerational communication. For example, a label with simple, open-ended questions can be positioned for accompanying adults to read to the children, often leading to discussion. Important messages can be communicated directly to adults. For example, The Minnesota Children's Museum has video "signs" in its Habitot toddler space. Adults can select a specific age group and see a video sequence of babies and toddlers playing, with an explanatory voice-over. At the Great Explorations Science Center in Liverpool, England, signs on the perimeter of a central space invited adult visitors to observe different kinds of behavior: children collaborating, children discussing, children standing alone deep in thought—or over-eager adults trying to control everything their children were doing. Helping adults to understand the world of children is as important a goal of children's museum exhibits as helping children to understand the world of adults. The environment The environment provides inspiration, motivation, materials and the very framework for play. A child-scaled environment immediately sends the message "I fit here! Things are my size!" When children feel this place is for them, they are ready to make confident explorations and joyful discoveries. The whole environment needs to be friendly and non-intimidating. Soft materials, soft shapes, soft colors and soft sounds all have a calming influence. When children feel secure in a calm environment, they interact more thoughtfully. Acoustics are an important consideration. Noise feeds on noise and a space can become intolerable because of uncontrolled feedback. Noise tends to be associated with gross motor activity, so some exhibit components need to be positioned carefully. Inhibiting noise with a partitioned layout encourages a stronger sense of curiosity and exploration. However, it can also present supervision problems—a real trade-off. Placement of components within exhibits requires careful consideration of the whole environment. For example, an exhibit component that requires quiet thought and concentration would not work well in a heavy-traffic passageway, or near a really lively activity. A useful strategy in the creation of a quiet reflective area is to provide stools. Simply encourage participants to sit down. Exploration "What do the things here do?" children wonder, and then, in play, they begin to poke, prod, pour, pound, pinch, and explore the possibilities. No matter how young, children enter the museum with some knowledge of how the world operates. As they play freely, they use what they already know and augment it, challenge it, build on it, and reaffirm it. As they rebuild their knowledge, they reaffirm themselves. Some interactives obviously conceal unseen and potentially surprising things. Who can walk past an array of flip-up panels or feely-holes without investigating at least one? The rest will be examined if the experience at the first one is sufficiently rewarding. Popular interactives, such as a ball hovering above an air blower, invite exploration, change, experimentation, hypothesis. And all of these processes occur while visitors are judging how the interactive is responding to them. A good exhibit offers multiple degrees of freedom to explore. Simply complex The subtle but important shift from wondering "what do the things here do?" to pondering "what can I do with these things?" takes the child to new levels of playful learning. There seems to be a kind of play-competence spiral: learning leads to more sophisticated play, and play provides a kind of mastery that leads to more learning, which leads to more sophisticated play, and so forth (Kirschenblatt-Gimblett 1979, 23). Children's museums can offer children the resources to play their way to deeper understandings, as materials, environments, and people are used to create and construct new learning. Informal but intense play in the museum provides the underpinnings for more formal, structured learning in other parts of their lives. How many of us have given an expensive present to a young child, only to see it tossed aside while they play with the box? How many designers' hearts have sunk as they realize that their complicated new interactive is doomed to be ignored with scarcely a glance from passersby? Can a designer be sure that any exhibit component will capture people's attention amid all the surrounding sensory overload? Children often "bounce" from component to component in an exhibit, pressing something here and spinning something there without pausing to observe or consider. This kind of experience lacks depth. A good interactive holds a person's attention after successfully attracting it. This is partly due to the range of exploratory experiences it offers, partly to subtle, indefinable aspects of its innate appeal, and partly to the extent to which the child can shape the experience for himself. It is a "rule of thumb" that complex toys engender simple play, while simple toys inspire complex play. This can be applied equally well to exhibits. The simpler and more open-ended the exhibit components, the more likely they will inspire high-level problem solving, creativity, and divergent thinking. Not Real, But True One of the most powerful ways to engage children in playful learning is through the imagination, yet it is this kind of play that is least understood as "educational." The spontaneous play of young children is their highest achievement. In their play, children invent the world for themselves and create a place for themselves in it. They are re-creating their pasts and imagining their futures, while grounding themselves in the reality and fantasy of their lives here and now (Jones and Reynolds 1992). The very highest form of play invites and involves imagination. Whether it is one child imagining how to build a bridge from one area to another or a group of children imagining themselves fishing off a trawler as they use magnet- ended down-riggers to pick up soft-sculpture fish with steel grommet eyes, imagination play experiences give children exceptionally strong feelings of competence and confidence. The more we can offer children the experience of feeling in control, of being powerful, the more self-confident they will be. The richer their imagination, the better they will become at real-life problem solving. Imagination play isn't real, but the feelings it engenders are strong and long lasting. It isn't real, but it is true. Scale is important in planning for imagination play. Everything should be scaled down. Try climbing into a five-foot-tall chair where your feet don't reach the ground in order to experience some of the helplessness that children experience every day. Give children a world that is their size and feelings of competence will follow—and, often, these are the feelings that leave the museum with the child. Another important exhibit feature is richly detailed realism. Like Alice through the looking glass, children entering an exhibit need to quickly experience the feeling that they have indeed walked into another world. While children engaged in imaginary play at home spend a long time determining the plot, amassing the props, and planning the environment, there usually isn't time for that in a museum visit, so museum exhibits must immediately and convincingly "set the mood" for a speedy jump into imagination play. Although props and spare parts constantly have to be tidied by staff, a true maxim is that the more resources —in the form of simple materials—the more play. Children need a large supply of good materials when they are imagining. Hearts-On, Hands-On, Minds-On Children's museums often describe themselves as "hands-on" and "minds-on." To that list of descriptors must be added "hearts-on." We know that the best learning in museums (and elsewhere!) occurs when people are engaged cognitively, motorically, and emotionally (Csikszentmihalyi & Hermanson 1995). This "hearts-on" element plays a critical role in long-term learning. Barry Zuckerman, in his presentation at the Association of Youth Museum's Early Learning in Museums Institute (Boston, 1997), suggested that the more favorable the emotional environment, the better the learning. As museums plan exhibits, designers must consider how their exhibits are going to touch the "inner selves" of their visitors. Exhibits should help visitors develop positive feelings towards anything about which the exhibit is designed for them to learn. These affective gains, such as liking the subject; wanting to find out more; and increased interest, curiosity, and self confidence, are too often overlooked in formal lists of educational goals. Conclusion Children haven't changed, but childhood has. Where children used to freely roam fields, empty lots, or city sidewalks, many of today's children are only safe when indoors. Children used to have hours of free time that required only their own imagination and initiative to fill; today's children are in organized sports, lessons, or programs, or can turn to computers, television, or videos for entertainment. In the past, children imagined that their dolls could talk and cry, or pretended that their robot built of blocks could suddenly come to life and walk. Today's kids have many toys in which computer chips have made the need for imagination largely unnecessary. Children's museums provide a safe harbor in a scary, busy, and complicated world. They offer children the gift of playing freely in an inviting and complex environment and of playing with new things and people in time-tested ways. These positive play experiences are changing children's lives, not merely by what they learn during a museum visit, but by helping them believe in their own powers to learn, to succeed, to make their own choices, to get along with other people, to make their own discoveries, and to know that they are interesting people with good ideas. In providing environments for play-filled learning, children's museums affirm that play isn't merely something to be tolerated in the gaps between eating, sleeping, and episodes of formal learning. Play is vitally necessary to a child's healthy and full development. It is the essence of childhood, and it is this message that may be the most important one children's museums have to share with society. Endnotes: Csikszentmihalyi, M., and Hermanson, K., "Intrinsic Motivation in Museums: What Makes Visitors Want to Learn?" Museum News, May-June, 1995. Jones, E., and Reynolds, G. The Play's The Thing. New York: Teacher's College Press, 1992. Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, B. "What is Good Play?" In Learning Through Play, P. Chance, ed., pp. 18-24. New York: Gardner Press, Inc., 1979. Mary Sinker is a museum consultant specializing in children's museum exhibits. In addition to creating environments that inspire play and learning in museums, Sinker writes and speaks about play, play environments, and toys to audiences here and abroad. Ian Russell is a UK-based biologist, science center specialist, and
'hands-on' consultant living in Derbyshire, England. He has been involved
in the European science center scene for over ten years, and has developed
several 'classical' hands-on science centers, including Great Explorations,
currently moving from Liverpool to Sheffield. In addition, Russell likes
to keep in touch with young minds through frequent performances of his
popular Exploding Custard show of do-it-yourself kitchen-table science
experiments. |
|||
 |
|
|
|
