New Tools Will Measure Impact of Play on Child Development
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 02/09/21
An international
effort is setting out to come up with new ways to help educators and
others measure the impact of play on learning and child development.
According to the organizers, the tools will be "open source,
user friendly, cost effective and designed to be adopted across
contexts by local governments, researchers, civil society and other
stakeholders." The focus will be on children aged zero to 12,
and the toolkit will include resources to support training, piloting,
contextualization and analysis.
The project is being
undertaken by three collaborators: RTI
International, a nonprofit research institute; New
York University's Global TIES for Children Center (NYU-TIES),
a research center within NYU's Institute
of Human Development and Social Change; and the LEGO
Foundation, which is funding the work.
"RTI is very
excited to be working with NYU-TIES, funded by the LEGO Foundation,
to develop tools to help us better understand the benefits of play
and how it can be promoted at home and at school for children of all
ages," said Melinda Taylor, senior vice president of
international education at RTI, in a statement.
According to RTI,
the toolkit will be tested in Kenya, Jordan, Bangladesh and Ghana,
with local institutions and experts in each country providing input
on their development.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.