Play as mediator for knowledge-creation in Problem Based Learning

Abstract

This article recounts reflections by a small group of students and their supervisor on play utilized at their meetings as part of a Problem Based Learning (PBL) process. The students experienced how a less traditional professor-student relationship arose, which transformed their interaction and relationship into a more holistic, trustful, sensitive, open, creative and collaborative form that gave rise to the following questions: what can a more playful approach bring into a PBL learning-space? What influence can play have on learning, and on student-to-student and student-supervisor relationships and collaboration? Why did the students find that this experience enhanced a learning that differed from their earlier experiences? What was it play had mediated? The article, which is also a theoretical discussion of future pedagogics in Higher Education, introduces a new model including three different knowledge forms. These take their departure from a PBL approach - regarded as a ‘problem-solving’ approach to learning, and PpBL (Play and Problem Based Learning), a ‘playful’, experimenting and intuitive approach.