The Power of Play and Connection!

Outline

5 minute: I will welcome participants, acknowledge them and list our objectives for the session
5 minutes: Participants will be guided in a visualization that get them in touch with why they do this work
5 minutes: I connect the dots between our desire to support students and the conditions that lead to an effective classroom climate for that to occur. Then I will share that with most of the rest of our time, we will be engaging in practices that will elicit us and our students (if we choose to use these practices with them) with positive emotions and I will share what the research says about how these practices prime our students brains to be more ready to learn.
30 minutes: We will be playing improv games and engage in connection rituals that allow us to be more in the present moment with our students and to experience more joy. These practical activities can seamlessly integrate into the pedagogical approach of the participants and will lead to their students feeling safer, more present, like they belong, being more engaged and having more fun together. After each activity we will discuss the scientific benefits (neurobiology and positive psychology) of the activity on students. We will also discuss how certain educational technology tools can augment these benefits if used mindfully.
Examples of such activities are:
Pass the clap - Games put us in the present moment - connect that to John Kabbat Zin’s definition of mindfulness
Pass the ball - Positive Emotions are contagious and Barbara Fredrickson’s Broaden and Build theory shows that when people are elicited with positive emotions they become more creative and are primed to want to learn more things.
Knife and Fork
4 person sculpture - Games bring vulnerability up to the surface in a safe way, which can lead students to feel more comfortable being vulnerable asking questions while learning or adminiting that they don’t understand something.
Coherent Story - can lead to more social flexibility in groups
Group Rock Paper Scissor - Creating emotional resonance in the classroom
Convergence

5 minutes: We will engage in a closure exercise that will allow people to synthesize which practices they might want to try to integrate into their pedagogical routine the following week.

Supporting research

The practices and strategies presented are grounded in the fields of Positive Psychology, Interpersonal neurobiology, Emotional Intelligence, and Applied Mindfulness. After using these in my classroom for 15 years and seeing powerful results, I’ve shared them with thousands of educators over the last 5 years. These educators have seen the same results with their students across K-12 schools and colleges.