Play, Questions, and Purpose: Reflecting on Our April 16 Presentation
4/16/25
On April 16, I had the opportunity to co-present a workshop with my friend and fellow IU Ph.D. student, Ryan Schaben, at the Play, Learning, and Inquiry Conference. Our session was called “Unlocking Purposeful Play: Asking Thought-Provoking Questions to Maintain Engagement and Deepen Learning.” It was designed for K–8 educators who, like us, believe in the power of curiosity and playful exploration in all subjects.
From the moment attendees walked in, we immersed them in an active provocation: building structures out of newspaper and tape. This hands-on challenge immediately sparked laughter, collaboration, and the kinds of “how” and “what if” questions we wanted to highlight throughout the session.
Our goal was to help teachers reimagine questioning, not as something to quiz kids, but as a tool to provoke thinking, deepen engagement, and fuel playful learning. We explored the research behind effective questioning, shared personal classroom stories, and introduced a framework for designing what we call “back-pocket questions” (a term we stole from Ambitious Science Teaching). These are open-ended prompts that educators can pull out at any moment to nudge student thinking without interrupting the flow of learning.
One of my favorite moments was watching teachers use our mystery tube activity to generate their own thoughtful questions. Many admitted they felt uncertain at first, but then found themselves having fun and thinking more deeply than expected. It mirrored what often happens with students: playful learning can feel unfamiliar at first, but it creates the space for wonder, struggle, and discovery.
At the heart of our session were two big takeaways:
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Play isn’t a break from learning—it is learning.
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Asking better questions leads to better thinking.
We left feeling energized by the conversations and hopeful that even small shifts—like waiting longer after asking a question or replacing “why” with “what do you notice?”—can make a meaningful impact in classrooms.
And the best part? We built this session together, as two educators who believe that learning should be joyful, collaborative, and full of questions worth asking.
These newspaper collaborations were made with strangers in small groups. It shows how one prompt to make a structure from newspaper can be interpretted and executed so differently from group to group!