Keynote

The Playful University

Abstract

The Playful University brings together philosophy and play theory to explore menaces to modern universities and how we might rethink and reconfigure higher education using play and playfulness to create better institutions and environments for staff and students. The menace of the growing marketisation of higher education has led to increased use of metrics and quantification, with an inevitable increase in instrumental behaviour from management, staff, and students as they attempt to game or perform in this system. This stifles creativity, curiosity, and crucially the ability to fail well and learn from that failure. The Playful University provides an antidote to these approaches by opening an alternative space of higher education thinking doing and being through playful philosophy, playful pedagogy, playful politics and playful principles. The Playful University book and keynote shows that it is possible to reimagine a university that is desired and designed to be playful at all levels. In which students and staff approach their studies with a sense of purpose and wonder, care, and openness to explore, imagine, and build a better future.

Speakers

Professor Rikke Toft Nørgård

Rikke Toft Nørgård is Associate Professor at The Danish School of Education, Aarhus University. Nørgård is in the steering group of Centre for Higher Education Futures (CHEF) and board member of the Danish Network for Educational Development in HE. Dr Nørgård’s research focuses on the complexities and interrelationships of higher education futures, philosophy, playfulness and design theories. She is currently the coordinator and research leader of the Horizon Europe project EPIC-WE: Empowered Participation through Ideating Cultural Worlds and Environments: youth imagining, creating and exchanging cultural values and heritage through game-making (2023-2026). She is founder of the Playful University Platform (PUP) and has published books, articles and given keynotes on the playful university, playful higher education and playful teaching and learning.

Professor Nicola Whitton

Nicola Whitton is Professor of Digital Learning and Play in the department of Computing and Information Science at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, UK. Her research focuses on play in adulthood, in particular games and learning in the context of Higher Education, and the potential of play in teaching, research, and academic practice. She has written two books on games and education and has edited five other collections. Her most recent projects have focused on the potential of escape room design for learning.