Health & Fitness
Milken Community Schools Hosts Playful Learning Summit
On Sunday, March 9, Milken Community Schools partnered with the Institute for Innovation in Education to offer Playful Learning Summit, a day of professional development targeting 4th – 12th grade Los Angeles based teachers, who want to invigorate student learning with new, bleeding-edge techniques. Capitalizing on students' innate curiosity and love of games, teachers took part in workshops and round-tables discussing ways of integrating the pedagogy of play into their curricula.
The Summit gathered 100 teachers, administrators, and playful learning specialists from across the country to network, share, and take part in hands-on simulations. Los Angeles area schools that participated were Archer, Buckley, Crossroads, Curtis, Harvard-Westake, the Incubator School, Los Encinos, Mirman, Marlborough, New LA Charter School, New Roads, Sinai Akiba, and Windward. Professors from the University of Michigan-Flint, and teacher educators from the University of Wisconsin-Madison were among the distinguished speakers and presenters.
The opening session, “Playful Learning: A National Movement,” was presented by Remi Holden, co-founder of the Institute for Innovation in Education, Playful Learning Leadership Team. The keynote address,“The Pedagogy of Purposeful Play,” was delivered by AJ Webster and Tedd Wakeman, of Playmaker. Following the formal sessions, participants engaged in a series of interactive workshops intended to inspire new ways of gamifying the classroom.
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Feedback from attendees was overwhelmingly positive. Lidia Turner, Milken Hebrew teacher said, "It was fun, engaging and eye opening. I hope I can use some of the ideas in my classes soon." Dimitri Hodgkinson, Milken math teacher remarked, "Our students will be solving quickly evolving and challenging problems throughout their lives and it is critical that we help them develop their creativity and cultivate a playful mindset in doing so.”
The Milken Community Schools Playful Learning Summit was the first of its size in the greater Los Angeles area, and is part of the broader Playful Learning movement taking place worldwide. For more information about connecting to the movement, go to: http://beta.playfullearning.com/events.
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About Milken Community Schools
As a grades 7 – 12 college preparatory institution, Milken Community Schools is one of the largest Jewish, independent, co-educational schools in the country. We are a place of rigorous academic exploration and intellectual inquiry built on a foundation of spiritual and ethical practice. We develop students with sharp minds, generous hearts, and kind souls. Our 10-acre campus is located in the Santa Monica Mountains along the Mulholland Corridor.
