Guided Play
Overview
Teaching students through guided play encourages them to take an active role in their learning and supports the development of a broad array of cognitive skills. Guided collaborative play also promotes the development of more complex social interactions, supporting students' social and emotional learning. Finally, engaging students in math-specific play activities (e.g., board games and collaborative play with building blocks) related to learning goals can deepen students' understanding of many math skills, such as Counting and Estimation.
Example: Use This Strategy in the Classroom
Watch how this teacher engages with her students in guided play. While the students play with blocks, the teacher asks questions to further their understanding of mathematical concepts within the play context.
Design It into Your Product
Videos are chosen as examples of strategies in action. These choices are not endorsements of the products or evidence of use of research to develop the feature.
Learn how PLAY LAB promotes exploration of shapes, colors, and numbers in an open-ended, fun environment. By embracing learners' curiosity and creativity, this app gives users the freedom to experiment freely while learning foundational math skills.
Additional Resources
Additional examples, research, and professional development. These resources are possible representations of this strategy, not endorsements.
Factors Supported by this Strategy
More Cooperative Learning Strategies
As students solve problems in a group, they learn new strategies and practice communicating their mathematical thinking.
Flexible grouping is a classroom practice that temporarily places students together in given groups to work together, with the purpose of achieving a given learning goal or activity.
As students walk through stations working in small groups, the social and physical nature of the learning supports deeper understanding.
To promote acceptance of learning diversity, students explore learning tools and strategies to see how they work and why they and others might use them.
When students have meaningful conversations about math and use math vocabulary, they develop the thinking, questioning, and explanation skills needed to master mathematical concepts.
Students deepen their understanding and gain confidence in their learning when they explain to and receive feedback from others.
Respectful redirection, or error correction, outlines a clear and concise way that educators can provide feedback on behaviors that need immediate correction, in a positive manner.
Students develop their skills by listening to and speaking with others in informal ways.
