Play in Learning!

Pentti Hakkarainen

is Professor of Early Education at the University of Oulu, Finland with a background in educational psychology, early education, developmental teaching and research methods. He runs post graduate program “Meaningful learning in narrative environments” and experimental program of school transition. His research interests include play, creative teaching and learning, narrative learning and development in play and virtual environments, and learning transitions. His recent publications topics include emergent illiteracies and play, narrative learning in the fifth dimension, vertical integration in developmental teaching, psychology at the limit, or the limits of psychology, psycho-pedagogical thinking and its methodological context. He is currently working a book on play, which includes examining its historical theorization and contexts.

Milda Bredikyte

worked as an artistic director of drama and puppet theatre from Saint-Petersburg State Theatre Arts Academy in Russia, and has directed 11 performances at professional puppet theatre and on Lithuanian national TV. During her working career she has taught at Vilnius School of Education and at Vilnius Pedagogical University and directed and acted in her private puppet theatre, while also serving on the national board of Lithuania on early and primary education. She currently runs a research laboratory on children’s play.  She is writing her second doctoral thesis on the development of young children’s imagination, having written first doctoral dissertation on  “Dialogical Drama with Puppets (DDP) as a Method of Fostering Children’s Verbal Creativity.” Her research interests include creativity, narrative learning the cultural development and impact of art on children’s development and also the role of imagination and play in learning.