AI is reshaping industries and daily life around the world - and education is no exception. As the technology accelerates, it’s already transforming how teachers plan, assess, communicate and connect with students.
While concerns about AI replacing teachers persist, the reality is far more complex—and filled with opportunity. This technology shift calls for a reimagining of the teacher’s role, where professional judgement, leadership and curiosity take centre stage.
In this episode, Dr Jo Blannin unpacks what generative AI actually is, why it’s more than just a tech tool, and how teachers can lead its meaningful and ethical use in schools. Secondary School teacher Miguel Regalo shares how he and his colleagues are using AI on the ground - from supporting lesson planning and differentiation, to parent communication and professional reflection.
You’ll also hear how AI tools like ATLAS are being used in initial teacher education, and why the challenge ahead isn’t about keeping up with the technology - but shifting the mindset around how it’s used in, and out of, the classroom.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Topics we explore:
(00:00) Introduction to Generative AI
(01:57) Big Questions about AI
(02:52) What is Generative AI?
(06:20) Using AI in the Classroom
(07:36) Ethics, Privacy and Data Safety
(12:18) How Teachers Are Using AI
(15:16) Understanding and Adopting AI
(18:02) Effective Leadership in School Change
(19:00) How Students Are Using AI
(19:49) Rethinking Assessment with AI
(26:08) Atlas Project: Real-World Teaching Practice
(29:41) Where to Start if You’re AI Curious
Resources:
Special Guests:
Associate Professor Jo Blannin
Senior Lecturer, School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education
Faculty of Education, Monash University
Connect with Jo on LinkedIn
Miguel Regalo
Professional Growth & eLearning Leader
Mac.Robertson Girls’ High School
Connect with Miguel on LinkedIn
If you’re enjoying Let’s Talk Teaching, don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review! You can follow us on Instagram, X and Facebook, and share your thoughts on the show by using the hashtag #letstalkteachingpodcast.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the short courses, undergraduate and postgraduate study options that Monash Education offers, please visit our website.
We are grateful for the support of Monash University’s Faculty of Education in producing this podcast.
[00:00:00] Rebecca Cooper: This podcast is recorded on the land of the Bunurong people of the Eastern Koan nation. We'd like to pay our respect to elders past and present, and acknowledge that this land was stolen and never seeded. Welcome to Let's Talk, teaching the podcast created by teachers for teachers
[00:00:19] Leigh Disney: when these younger children are starting to engage in that play.
[00:00:23] What they're starting to do is take on the realities of their lived world, so they see all this magic stuff going on in their adult world. But they can't do those things, but they want to do those things. So in their play, they go beyond themselves, don't they? Yeah.
[00:00:44] Rebecca Cooper: Play is fundamental to early learning, sparking curiosity, problem solving and creativity, whether through songs, rhymes or imaginative storytelling.
[00:00:55] But as children move into the older years of primary school play often takes a [00:01:00] backseat to more structured learning.
[00:01:01] Leigh Disney: We see children in these. Very early years who do this dramatic play, and all of a sudden they then transition to school. Then it becomes, okay, what is now their motive? Why would they want to play?
[00:01:15] Because now it's time for learning. You don't play when you get to school. But the reality is play looks different for primary school children because all of a sudden rules are different. They're very strict, very structured about how things are and the ways that they should be.
[00:01:32] Rebecca Cooper: I'm associate Professor Rebecca Cooper.
[00:01:35] Assistant Dean of Initial Teacher Education at Monash University's Faculty of Education. Each episode we engage with education experts and alumni to explore real challenges and innovations in the classroom, providing valuable insights. That can be applied to your own teaching practice. Joining me today is Dr.
[00:01:55] Lee Disney, who specializes in the role of play in early learning and Hong [00:02:00] Chen, a PhD candidate and early childhood teacher, researching how play-based learning can be successfully integrated throughout the schooling years. Lee, let's start with the big and important question. What is play?
[00:02:15] Leigh Disney: Play is such a interesting but contested term.
[00:02:19] So when you start to have these sorts of debates with your colleagues and with academics worldwide, there's not going to be this one singular definition of what play is. Um, it's contentious. It is somewhat political as well. So there's not this notion that there is one size fits all for what play is and how it is.
[00:02:42] Uh, sort of construed within the broader society. Um, we, myself and Hong, um, come from a school of thought that, uh, sort of draws on the work of, well, not sort of, definitely draws on the work of Lev Vygotsky. So I. Thinking in terms of, [00:03:00] uh, what we in Australia would call cultural historical theory, but probably is known worldwide, more like sociocultural theory, and we think about play in terms of imagination and children's imagination and how they can draw from that imagination in order to sort of sustain play, but.
[00:03:19] The ways in which we think about play for Hong and I are different than say maybe other institutions and other people. And, uh, so for us, um, it, it, it is about children and drawing from that perspective and creating imaginary scenarios and living out fantasies and doing all those things. And maybe as we get along in this conversation, we can.
[00:03:42] Talk a bit more deeply about why that's so important and how that sort of supports the younger children who are then transitioning into school and things of that nature. But when we were thinking about this podcast, uh, Hong and I met and we sort of just had a, a brainstorm about, you know, what we thought about [00:04:00] play and our experiences.
[00:04:02] And Hong was sharing with me like a really great example of play that she. Sort of had uncovered when she was out in schools and shared that with me and I thought, oh wow, I wish sort of, I had had that experience too. So, but Hong,
[00:04:17] Rebecca Cooper: tell
[00:04:17] Hong Chen: us what's the example you've got of play? Yeah, so that was happened a few years ago while I was teaching in foundation years, the prep class.
[00:04:27] Uh, we normally had Dipo play session. Which we, uh, will happen every morning for prep year student, um, that will block out one specific hour for children before all the formal lessons start. So, we'll starting that at that particular example I'll sharing will be, uh, we'll sharing, we'll playing about babies.
[00:04:50] So set up a. Corner with every resource donated from the community, including clothes, including, um, cord beeps, [00:05:00] uh, many, many things you can see in our everyday life, in home. Uh, and then what children do, they will just freely, they can select whatever the resource they wanna play with, whatever the form they wanna play with, and what we observe with the children.
[00:05:14] Be some, some of them were washing the clothes and then handing them across the classroom and washing the baby's clothes, get ready for the next day. And some of them were, uh, fitting the baby and holding them around trying to, uh, make them sleep. And what we actually do from those di. Play sessions was they draw a pound on these kind of form of imaginative play and then move into their literacy class.
[00:05:41] So they were writing a retelling about what they did in the event play. So they were drawing a pound, the event play. What they did actually with the, with the little baby and what they did, what the conversation with them, and then retell to us what happened in their [00:06:00] play and what's the most interesting component in their imaginative play.
[00:06:03] Draw them into the literacy. I. Lessons while we're having been after.
[00:06:09] Rebecca Cooper: So building off that play experience and bringing it into other aspects of, of the learning for the children. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah. So then tell me more about the role of sort of play generally in, in education.
[00:06:23] Leigh Disney: Yeah. And see that's where for me, when Hong shared that example, um.
[00:06:28] I thought, yeah, that's such a great use of imagination in order to then facilitate play. Because my experience of seeing play in primary schools was very different than that, and it was more akin to what you would say is, uh, say, uh, board games or very structured. Play, you know, within primary school settings.
[00:06:48] And so that's where like when we were chatting, I was thinking, wow, my experience was so different because when I, it was with my own children and supporting their teachers with play, [00:07:00] and so they had very different perspectives on play and so it sort of limited in a way, some of the ways in which the children were allowed to play because.
[00:07:10] When we think about play, and this is the unique component of when children transition from the early years and then into school age. So we have this sense that when they're young play is all this all encompassing. It's the magic whooo and it's the, it's the ways in which the, the, the, that's the way the child learns.
[00:07:34] But why? Why is it that the children at that age, it seems to be that that's the way they learn. And the reason for that is, is because when these younger children are starting to engage in that play, what they're starting to do is take on the realities of their lived world. So they see all this magic stuff going on in their adult world, [00:08:00] but they can't do those things.
[00:08:03] But they want to do those things. So in their play they go beyond themselves, don't they? Yeah.
[00:08:08] Hong Chen: Yeah. They go one head beyond themself. 'cause they try something different. They try to do something that they can't actually do in real life. So something parents do, something adults do. They try it in play.
[00:08:22] Leigh Disney: Yeah.
[00:08:23] But in that moment. They practice literacy, they practice mathematics, they learn science concepts. They do all those things when there is an adult who is there and engage with them in those processes to help them. Because what we think about is that children experience this in everyday worlds, so their everyday life.
[00:08:46] But that knowledge, say the maths, the science, you know, the literacy, all of those things, they are socially constructed ideals. And so in order for children to sort of develop those [00:09:00] concepts, they need to have either an adult or a more capable peer who can then support that. And so we see children in these very early years who do this dramatic play and all of a sudden they then transition to school.
[00:09:13] Then it becomes, okay, what is now their motive? Why would they want to play? Because now it's time for learning. You don't. Play when you get to school. But the reality is especially, and maybe later, Hong could share with you some of her examples about her research in terms of thinking about that transition process and why the imaginative play is so important.
[00:09:36] But the reality is play looks different for primary school children because all of a sudden rules are different. They're very strict, very structured about how things are and the ways that they should be.
[00:09:48] Rebecca Cooper: So then how do you foster and sustain that sense of play?
[00:09:53] Leigh Disney: Well, I mean, when I was working in a primary school, I had a little girl who really [00:10:00] struggled with the academic component of what it meant to be a school child.
[00:10:04] So she was in her first, first year, and all of the social expectations, all of the curricular expectations were just too much for her at that stage. One of the things that I made sure every day for her and for the class was that we did have periods of, let's call it, um, not free, but it was a structured time, but sort of free choice in a way.
[00:10:31] But I made sure she had access to resources in which she could enact the things that she wanted to. And one of the things, I'll never forget this, it was one of the most amazing creations I've ever seen. She started constructing this device and it took her weeks, like not just, you know, she would work on it slowly over time, and at some point I said to her, is that a coffee machine?
[00:10:58] I. And she said yes, like really [00:11:00] proud. She's like, yes, that is a coffee machine. And I said, well, why? Why did you do the coffee machine? Can you talk to me about it? Well, mom and dad have coffee every single day, and I wanted to make them a coffee machine. But the thing is, for a little girl who struggled with her sort of.
[00:11:18] Emotion regulation. So she found it really difficult to sit and listen for a girl who was really struggling with literacy, who was really struggling with math, really struggling with it. But when she made this, she did detailed diagrams, she did measurements, she did all of the curricular components.
[00:11:36] Because I gave her the space and the time to do it, and she felt like it wasn't regulated like I was, okay kids, now it's time. You've gotta do this. And it was a structured moment in time. She felt she had the freedom because she'd come from a play-based learning environment that when she transitioned into these moments, she felt at home.
[00:11:56] You know, she felt that that was part of who she was.
[00:11:59] Rebecca Cooper: So that. [00:12:00] Sense of transition from play-based and perhaps early childhood learning and into school seems like a, a really important time and a really important point of consideration. And Hong, I think that's sort of a space you work in, isn't it?
[00:12:16] Hong Chen: Yes, yes.
[00:12:16] Yeah. So you
[00:12:17] Rebecca Cooper: tell us a little bit about that transitional sort of space.
[00:12:19] Hong Chen: Yeah. Well, I start my research. From the point of view of my motivation, my personal motivation, where I've been working with kindergarten as well as prep children. That, um, being so, hearing so many different voices from them about what their expectation to school, what they will do in school, and hearing from the prep children.
[00:12:42] Oh, I think I miss something from the kindergarten. I miss something from the early child, but I still like the vibes in the school. So from kindergarten, children will her. Something like, oh, I'm, I'm going to sitting in front of the teacher and then listen to listen to [00:13:00] her. That's what my mommy told me, and that's what my sister always do.
[00:13:04] Uh, I will do all the calculation. I can do a lot of readings. It'll be different in kinder. That's what children tell me in kinder, and we'll have children in prep saying, oh, we usually play every day. We'll play whole day here and there. We can ride bikes, we can create whatever we want. We, I can make crafts, I can make bracelets.
[00:13:25] I can be any roles I can be while I'm in kinder, but now I'm not going to study. I'm going to be a very good student. That's what my prep student were telling me. And while I've been hearing so many and I have having children struggling with the transition period, I'm thinking what will be a good way to really supporting them going through the transition?
[00:13:48] We have children who are really, uh. A accommodate to the difference, accommodate to the change. But we do have children who are very struggling, especially when they, uh, don't get those [00:14:00] experience to visit what the school will look like. And they don't have the siblings who will be in the school to introducing them or the school be looking like, they'll be feeling, oh, this is so, uh, unfamiliar place for me.
[00:14:12] So looking for approach to looking for strategy, to really helping them. To go through that transition. So that bring to my research topic was using the conceptual play word, which is the imaginative play-based approach to helping children, uh, during the transition. Well, my topic, specifically talking about mathematics learning, but it can definitely go to the overall learning and development for children.
[00:14:38] What have you found so far? Hong? I definitely need to introduce what the conceptual play, what is so imaginative play where children can take home different roles, uh, different characters, and especially the teachers will be in there as well. Not just the children themselves, the children and teacher, the collectively go into the story.
[00:14:57] Uh. Uh, drawing a pound [00:15:00] and then go into the play world. Uh, they can create whatever they interested with and then go to explore the specific question they might have and using relevant concepts or skills to solve that problem. So they were engaging in a very imaginative and very, uh, immersive problem solving situation.
[00:15:20] And then what I found was in kindergarten, we found children have served. Uh, wonderful capability to go into very complex ideas, which we are not really specified in the early learning framework. And, uh, in the school, the children, they can actually finding lots of issues that going beyond their levels of learning their specific year level like we had in foundation year children, they've been already going into very depths of major.
[00:15:56] They were identifying what talent is, how [00:16:00] to, making sure the comparison of major men will be very accurate to solving a real life problem. To making sure they can get enough length of, uh, chairs to sit with. They can get enough, uh, big size of bowls to, uh, feeding their babies or feeding their, uh, little base.
[00:16:20] So everything was draw upon on a story, but it will be, dive into the direction they feeling interested with. So the measurement concepts or the preposition concepts they one diving into was not just strictly. Directing by teacher, not teacher, saying, okay, now we are going to major the things, rather, we wanna pose a question to children.
[00:16:44] What will be happening? Oh, I don't have any chair to sit with. Uh, my chair is broken, but we have so many beds here. What can we do? So the children propose themself about, oh, I need to make a very long chair to fit all of us. So something like these really [00:17:00] resonate to draw children into the mathematical concept and then into the problem solving.
[00:17:05] Fantastic. It's really exciting work,
[00:17:07] Rebecca Cooper: isn't it? It's because
[00:17:07] Leigh Disney: it's the collective. One of the things that we need to understand when children transition to school, so when they're in kindergarten, often they're in small groups, they're maybe solitary play, and when you hit a school classroom, it's a collective of learners.
[00:17:26] So you might be in a small reading group, but generally it's a class of 20 odd children together. Play and imagination can be brought together really well in those context to enhance the collective nature of what it means to be a group of people working together. I. And that's one of the sort of strengths of thinking about play and play-based, uh, strategies, working with primary schools because you want a collective of children to be cohesive together.
[00:17:57] And I know myself [00:18:00] that my favorite classroom moments are when I know my children are connected.
[00:18:05] Rebecca Cooper: Yeah. Okay.
[00:18:05] Leigh Disney: Yeah. And by have using imaginative play and in the ways that Hong was talking about. You can then create that cohesion within your group to sort of think about what it means to be this collective.
[00:18:18] Because sometimes when you were a teacher and we've got individual tasks and we're trying to meet those outcomes, it can sometimes seem quite, uh, structured and organized to a point where it's 20 odd individuals doing separate tasks. But when we can in integrate things like. What Hong was talking about with the conceptual play world or other play-based, uh, approaches and thinking in ways of going about it.
[00:18:42] You create the cohesion within your team, and I always think of a group of children as a team. We know regardless of what that may be. So, yeah.
[00:18:51] Rebecca Cooper: So what are some other maybe pieces of advice or strategies that you might have for teachers, whether it's early childhood or even into [00:19:00] primary to foster that notion of play and imagination as as the learning in the classroom?
[00:19:07] Leigh Disney: For me, it's understanding that imagination. Doesn't disappear just because a child leaves kindergarten. It's still there. It's just not as loud and it's insular. Like my own daughter who is now 16, when she was six, I found this drawing, um, on her table and it was a picture of, um. I think it was Anna from Frozen, and I thought, oh yeah, great.
[00:19:38] Another picture of Anna from Frozen is just brilliant, and I was just about to go and put it in the recycle bin, and as I turned it over, there was 25 women in a row. And I looked at it and then I looked, and it was the first one was six, the next one was seven, the next one was eight, and then it just [00:20:00] kept going until she was hitting into her thirties.
[00:20:03] It was her. She was imagining who she was going to be and what she was going to look like at these different ages, but that's imagination. You know, that comes from the person she thinks she will be and wants to be an imagination for a 6-year-old or a 10-year-old, yes, it looks different than a 3-year-old.
[00:20:27] It's still there. So to find the pathways to allow children to be creative and inventive and too. Facilitate moments of craziness because sometimes that's what play is and it's a bit scary as a teacher to have that craziness, but to allow them those moments because one is that collective, but two is that the emotion and wanting to be, I.
[00:20:52] Who they are becoming. And like, as I said, I kept, as soon as I saw that picture that my daughter had done, I laminated [00:21:00] it and I've got it kept in a safe space. And every year I just go to see what that, what that person now looks like. Compared, like in her teenage pictures, she made sure she looked really gorky and you know, pimps and, but when she was 22 she had like a handbag and she was like, ready for the world.
[00:21:17] It's allowing those spaces for, for children to explore the person they want to be and for teachers to facilitate their capacity to have that dream and play can enable that at different stages. And yes, it looks different for a bunch of year sixes than it does for a bunch of preps or transitional or whatever you call it in your state or territory, but.
[00:21:39] It's the same underlying token. It's just not as loud.
[00:21:43] Hong Chen: What do you think, Hong? Yeah, I think we have to acknowledge that imaginative play can be very chaotic when children, they are discussing their role, discussing their rules. I. You'll see them very loudly, even arguing with each [00:22:00] other. Oh no. I have to be the mom.
[00:22:02] I have to look after them. No, you're gonna be the sister. You're gonna, uh, looking after little sister, something like this. Uh, you'll hear children keep discussing it, even just based on one point, but we have to know. When they discussing, when they're arguing, they are really into that imaginative play.
[00:22:20] They are discussing what's the specific norm they will need to be, explore, what's the specific concept they need to bring into making sure the rules are followed. For example, well, we had children that was happening in one of my data collection. While they're discussing how to create a map to making sure the farm is clearly mapped out of their new farm, so they're creating a new farm.
[00:22:47] Um, they, uh, all the children, they were different farm animals. We had one small group of children. They were all cat cats. Um, so we're providing them different kinds of resource like tables, chairs, [00:23:00] uh, cushions, blankets. Um, some of them were discussing. They have to make a very big bed for every cat to stay cozy and lovely.
[00:23:11] But others were talking about they need to have a very protective house. For the cats so they can protect them from the rain. Um, so they were discussing what resource they need to be distributed, what area need they need to have. So if I'm gonna make a very big bed, I need to have enough space to setting up all my blanket or something.
[00:23:32] And if I need a, um, create a house by need somewhere that. Is strong enough, stable enough. So they were discussing all those concepts. You will hear them say, no, you don't. You shouldn't use that. This, this is my resource. You should, you should use something else. Something like that. So if you just stepping into that as a teacher, you, you are.
[00:23:54] If you are not really part of this, oh, I, I think I should stop them. [00:24:00] They seems they gonna have a fight. I need to stop them. Maybe I need negotiate when, find something else to do. But if you are in there, if you, as the teacher you are in there, you will find out. They were actually in that play. They were discussing the concepts, they were discussing all those specific strategies or skills they need to implement while they're creating, constructing all those things.
[00:24:23] So acknowledging the chaotic, acknowledging they maybe lose control, but using your teacher's role. Maybe you are a farmer. You coming, oh, come down. Come down cats. Maybe we can, uh, discussing what, uh, we, we can find if there's some other resource. From our cottage, we can use, uh, I'm the farmer. I have lots of resource in my, in my backyard or something like that.
[00:24:47] So using your teacher's role but imaginatively to control those chaotic, you'll be really a good immersive. And then continue the play while children can, uh, explore all those [00:25:00] concepts engaging. More complex construction as well.
[00:25:04] Rebecca Cooper: Leo, I just wanna pick on something you said before when you were saying it.
[00:25:07] It sort of looks different at the different stages. Have you got an example of something that's a bit more upper primary?
[00:25:15] Leigh Disney: Well, you think about like more structured rules, like say something like chess. You've got pretend horses, you've got pretend bishops, you've got pretend queens. You children are engaged in these sorts of games with rules.
[00:25:29] But it's still part of their imagination. You think about a group of children sitting out kicking a football, they're mark rash. They're, you know, they're whatever dream it is that they have, and when you think about the child who is invested in, say, the arts, it's not necessarily going to look loud and obtrusive in terms of what their imagination is.
[00:25:56] But it's the underlying principle behind what it is that they [00:26:00] do. And so if you can tap into that underlying imagination and sense of wonder, so regardless of if that's a, a 12-year-old or if that's a 6-year-old, yes, it will look different. But as the children get older, they games with rules and strategies become really dependent on how they think about the world because they know the world is structured.
[00:26:22] They're starting to see that. They see their parents work, they see their parents' organization, and they want part of that too. But they want it in a way that sort of still embeds into what they believe in and their sort of overall goals for who they want to become as people. And so, yes, teachers can sort of facilitate that by doing things that are structured, but have that imagination and creativity in it so that they can learn and try new things.
[00:26:48] Rebecca Cooper: So I'm a teacher out there and I'm listening to this and I wanna give this a go. Where do I start?
[00:26:55] Hong Chen: I think starting from, um, the children, definitely [00:27:00] while we thinking from children's perspective, you'll know their interest, you'll know their intention, what things can really draw them to. You may wanna have a look what children's story.
[00:27:11] They've been always lovely to, uh, listen to always love to engage with. Maybe there could be a story that you can draw a pound and say, I found this book, or Let's read together and I. What do you think about this book? I, I feel this something strange happening, this book and what we can extend, what we can get from there.
[00:27:31] And children will tell you so many, so many different ideas. Like we were reading the Three Best and Goldilocks story, that we are very familiar story for everyone and. Children. Were not just limiting in that specific story while you asking them, oh, what do you like about this story? What do you think it will be happen next?
[00:27:50] They were telling you, oh, I think we must have someone to look after the best house. We should not have got lost coming anymore. We need [00:28:00] to. Do something where maybe we, uh, if they, uh, focus on the literacy point of view or maybe we need to, uh, have another episode and we have another series of folk about, uh, how those three bed protecting their house or we, if they were thinking about literally.
[00:28:17] Um, in their everyday life. If someone broke into our house, what should we do? Or maybe we need to go to Bunnings to look for some, uh, security cameras. We need to making sure our house, our doors are strong enough not being broken. Our beds are strong enough as well, not letting the Goldilocks sleeping on that.
[00:28:36] So there will be so many interesting ideas from the children they will telling you. And then you grab those ideas and see if it'll be. Fitting or matching with your intention of teaching, matching with your curriculum ideas, intention, uh, it can always be draw upon. It can, using a very dramatic question to leading them into that conceptual exploration.
[00:28:58] So always starting with [00:29:00] children will be a wonderful way.
[00:29:01] Leigh Disney: And so that's, you know, drawing upon what Hong has done and obviously, um. Know it very well because I'm a PhD supervisor, but in a very busy school curriculum. So we know what that's like. And so again, speaking to teachers who were out there who were like, yeah, but how do I fit it in?
[00:29:20] And the the wonderful thing about Hong's data that showed me as well was that when the teacher gave the time and opportunity to engage in this imaginative play, she was still able to get her needs met. She was looking for, it was positional language, and so she was looking to support the children for their understanding positional language.
[00:29:43] So through the imaginative play scenario, created in the conceptual play world, she could then get her needs met. I. Yeah, and that was the important part because we know in a very busy school week, you don't have time to just go, okay, it's, there's, let's [00:30:00] relax, let's, no, we still have outcomes, but it's then being present in those moments to understand.
[00:30:07] To be looking for what it is that you actually want to get out of it, as well as the teacher. And knowing that the children, and again, something great from Hong's data was that the children took her in different directions and they showed her assessment in real time of the concepts she was trying to teach.
[00:30:26] So in other words, they were enacting through their imagination and she could go. I've seen you do this. I now know that you understand this because you've done it in real time trying to solve a problem that you think is real because you think it's real. Doesn't mean it's not real, but it's, you think it's real and it meant something to those children and again.
[00:30:50] This works with 10 year olds. Um, we know that, uh, Laureate Professor Marilyn Flair has done this with children in year five to six. And if you go to her Conceptual Play [00:31:00] World's website, you'll find those examples as well. And the thing is, when children are giving time resources and an adult who cares, it then allows them to move into these spaces.
[00:31:12] Where they can revisit some of that earlier childhood stuff. And it might, they might seem a little bit at first, but once they let go, they let go. And if they know, the adult empowers them to do so, they will.
[00:31:25] Rebecca Cooper: Well, thank you both very, very much for such an interesting and exciting conversation. If there's one thing we've taken away from this conversation, it's that play isn't a break from learning.
[00:31:38] It is. Learning as children grow, finding ways to embed play into classrooms can continue to support engagement, encourage curiosity, and help children make sense of their world. The challenge isn't where the play belongs in education, but how we use it with purpose. Now, there's something for the imagination.
[00:31:59] Leigh Disney: Absolutely. [00:32:00]
[00:32:00] Rebecca Cooper: Thank you both so much. Thank you. Thank you,
[00:32:01] Leigh Disney: Beck.
[00:32:03] Rebecca Cooper: We've included a wealth of practical resources in our show notes that support your teaching journey. Be sure to check them out. If you're enjoying the show. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review and follow us on Instagram at Monash Education X at Monash Education and Facebook at Education Monash.
[00:32:23] And tell us what you thought of today's episode using the hashtag Let's Talk teaching podcast. We are grateful for the support of Monash University's faculty of education in producing this podcast. For more information on short courses and undergraduate and postgraduate study options, head to monash.edu.au/education/learn more.
[00:32:46] Thanks again for listening to Let's Talk Teaching.