Abstracts - Earli

How can play and learning be integrated into curriculum-based education? -was investigated usingtwo sets of empirical data comprising children’s (N=49) and teachers’ (N=14) views on play andlearning environments. The data were collected through creation sessions and interviews andcoded and analysed using the grounded theory approach. Teachers value playful learning processesthat ensure that the goals of curriculum will be met. Children prefer emotional play worlds thatallow them to experience excitement and amusement and afford opportunities for collaborativeactivities. The concept of playfulness encompasses eight features of activities and theenvironment: embodiment, emotion, collaboration, culture, action, narration, creation and insight.The pedagogical model Tutoring-Playing-Learning represents the interactional processes amongthese elements. Tutoring encompasses the teacher’s actions, peer collaboration and environmentalfactors that support children. Playing is defined as child-centred actions that facilitate learning.Learning occurs in embodied experiences through meaning-making. The TPL model and featuresof playfulness can be used for designing, evaluating and developing PLEs and their pedagogicalapplications. The research also has much to offer teacher training. In 2007, the model will betested through longitudinal experiments.Challenging boundaries: Bridging activity systems through collaborative inquiryCharles Max, University of Luxembourg, LuxembourgThis presentation will highlight learning experiences within the innovative BA in EducationalSciences at the University of Luxembourg. This program was launched in 2004 to meet thechallenging demands of the multilingual and multicultural societal context. Luxembourg has twoofficial languages, French and German, and a national language, Luxembourgish. About 40percent of the population are non-native speakers, the majority are people with Portuguese origins.Forty-two percent of the children use at least two languages with their parents (Max, Portante,Stammet, 2005). The program emphasises a transdisciplinary approach to develop expertise onlearning and teaching professionalisation in a life span perspective. Students experience acollaborative learning culture that challenges taken-for-granted boundaries such as theory-practice,research-training, teaching-learning, academic disciplines-school contents, university-schoolcontext. To achieve these aims the program stresses activities according to a sociocultural learningparadigm which draw upon cultural resources, human diversity and multi-professionalcooperation. These experiences aim at empowering future teachers to create rich learningopportunities within local schools that draw on former/other experiences across boundaries, createcontinuity by integrating tools from everyday contexts, value children’s cultural resources and"funds of knowledge" (Moll, 1992). The research uses cultural-historical activity theory(Engestroem et al., 1999) as theoretical framework for analysing the complex processes within alearning community and their transformative potential. It conceptualizes emerging conflicts andtensions as potential areas of rupture, innovation and change leading to learning and development.Data sources are audio-taped tutorials, interviews and learning portfolios. Particular emphasis willbe paid to the tensions emerging, a) when actors engaged in a joint project move between differentactivity systems, b) when learning in competing systems is mediated through common boundaryobjects. The implications of the findings for designing teacher education will be discussed.– 358 –