Summer Playground Institute

The annual CTL Summer Playground is an opportunity for faculty to decompress from the previous semester, connect with an interdisciplinary group of colleagues, and reconsider pedagogies in new, experimental forms. This series is inherently playful and is the CTL’s most off-the-wall event, featuring games, themes-of-the-day, chances to win prizes, and more – frequent attendees have called this series “Pratt’s best kept faculty wellness secret.” 

On this page, we’ve included descriptions from each past Playground Institute as well as reflective, playful course design activities adapted from past Playgrounds.

2025: Suspended Realities / Generative Uncertainties

What do teaching, learning, divination, and play have in common?

Join us at the 2025 Playground for a transformative faculty program that explores these parallels. We invite participants to reimagine their classrooms as liminal spaces where conventional rules are temporarily suspended in favor of alternative logics and collaborative meaning-making. Through hands-on workshops and reflective exercises, faculty will explore how intentionally constructed boundaries can create environments for radical imagination and learning. We will experiment with ideas like the magic circle, staying in the gap, threshold learning, and teaching with chance.

Amidst challenging contexts, this playful program offers space to embrace uncertainty as a generative force in teaching, while interacting with an interdisciplinary group of colleagues. Participants will leave with renewed pedagogical approaches that balance structure and spontaneity, protection and challenge.

Transform a conventional lesson plan by introducing an “alternative logic” that disrupts normal classroom expectations and creates space for new kinds of learning. 

Time Required: 40-60 minutes

Step 1: Identify Your Conventional Logic (10 minutes)

Choose an existing lesson plan and identify its underlying “conventional logic.” Ask yourself:

  • What assumptions about learning does this lesson rely on?
  • What’s the typical flow of information or skill development?
  • How do students usually demonstrate understanding?

Examples of conventional logics: linear progression, expert-to-novice knowledge transfer, individual mastery, cause-and-effect reasoning, systematic analysis

Step 2: Choose an Alternative Logic (5-10 minutes)

Select one alternative approach from this list (or create your own):

  • Chance operations: Use dice, cards, or random selection to determine lesson elements
  • Reversed processes: Start with the conclusion and work backward to the beginning
  • Constraint-based learning: Impose unusual limitations (no words, only questions, etc.)
  • Embodied creation: Use physical movement or positioning as the primary learning mode
  • Collective storytelling: Build knowledge through collaborative narrative
  • Critical fabulation: Address gaps in traditional knowledge through speculative storytelling

Step 3: Redesign One Element (20-30 minutes)

Transform one aspect of a lesson plan using your chosen alternative logic. Consider:

  • How will students engage with the material differently?
  • What new kinds of participation become possible?
  • How might this create a “magic circle” separate from ordinary classroom experience?
  • What will you need to facilitate this approach?

Step 4: Reflect (10 minutes)

  • What conventional assumptions did you challenge?
  • How might this alternative logic reveal new insights about your subject matter?
  • What uncertainties does this introduce, and how could those be generative?

Example: Writing Workshop

Original lesson: Students workshop drafts by offering constructive feedback.

Alternative logic chosen: Collective storytelling

Redesigned element: Each student reads only one paragraph of their work. The group collectively imagines what might come next, building on each other’s ideas. The original author takes notes on possibilities they hadn’t considered, seeing their work through multiple collaborative lenses.

Explore how to intentionally create classroom environments that feel distinct from the outside world, where students can take risks, experiment, and engage authentically with learning.

Time Required: 45-60 minutes

Background: The “magic circle” is a concept from game theory and ritual studies referring to a space/time/place where traditional norms and rules are temporarily suspended and replaced by alternative agreements. In classrooms, this can create psychological safety for intellectual risk-taking and authentic engagement. Our classrooms can become distinctly separate spaces, environments specifically designed for experimentation and learning. This activity works best when participants genuinely engage with the physical transformation rather than just thinking about it!

Step 1: Personal Reflection (10 minutes)

Take a moment to journal about these individual reflection prompts: 

  • When do you feel the most that the norms of the outside world are replaced?
  • What contexts, circumstances, or situations pull you into a “magic circle”?
  • Think about times when you’ve felt completely absorbed, safe to be yourself, or free to experiment

Step 2: Creating Your Own Magic Circle (15-20 minutes)

Physically reshape your current space to create a sense of separation from the outside world. This is an act of self-care and intentional boundary-setting. How can you signal to yourself that you’re entering a different kind of space?

Possibilities include: 

  • Move to a different location in your space
  • Clean and reorganize your immediate area
  • Create a physical boundary (blankets, candles, objects in a circle)
  • Adjust lighting or sound
  • Gather meaningful objects around you
  • Create a small altar or shrine to your creativity
  • Use scents, textures, or rituals that help you transition

Step 3: Show and Tell (15 minutes)

When this session was run synchronously, participants were invited to share how they changed their physical spaces. If you are using this resource individually, we recommend that you tell someone, anyone, about how you changed your space!

Step 4: Application to Teaching (20 minutes)

Reflection Questions for Educators 

Planning considerations: 

  • What rituals or routines could mark the beginning and end of class as transitions into/out of your “magic circle”?
  • How might you physically arrange your classroom space to feel distinct from other classes?
  • What agreements or norms would you establish to make the classroom feel psychologically safe?

Implementation considerations: 

  • How do you know when your classroom magic circle is working?
  • What threatens to break the circle, and how might you address those intrusions?
  • How do you help students who struggle to enter the circle or feel excluded from it?
  • When is a perforated or broken circle a good thing? When must we let the outside world into the classroom?
  • How can you maintain the magic circle’s sense of safety while still providing meaningful feedback?

Implementation ideas:

  • Begin class with a moment of silence or breathing
  • Use a special object that gets passed around during discussions
  • Start with a check-in question that’s unrelated to course content
  • Play the same piece of music as students enter
  • Have students arrange chairs in a circle rather than rows
  • Create a class motto, chant, shared gesture, or inside joke
  • Establish class traditions that build over the semester
  • Create collaborative class agreements that evolve over time

Adapted From: Summer Playground Institute “Suspended Realities” session on creating classroom magic circles as spaces for transformative learning.

2024: Meandering on the Margins

How do you know where you’re going when you haven’t been there before? 

Join us for 2024 CTL Summer Playground Institute in May, where we come together in a playful community to meander on the margins. Through various creative mapping exercises, participants will identify the boundaries of familiarity and be challenged to step outside their comfort zones and experiment with new pedagogies, spaces, worlds, locations, emotions, and more!

What is central to your pedagogy and what is on the periphery? Where do you find yourself entering the unknown and where do you find yourself retracing your steps? Is there a place where you consistently get lost, each time you approach it?  Through hands-on exercises, guest speakers, and workshops, we’ll delve into these topics together in a playful, interdisciplinary community. Additional topics will arise out of our meandering and might include: edges and boundaries, expertise, perspective, and exploration.

This year’s Playground Institute will inspire participants to embrace the margins and to find the potential for growth and transformation in the unfamiliar. Through play and creative collaboration, we will develop new perspectives and strategies for fostering learning environments that support experimentation and encourage ourselves and our students to attempt the unfamiliar. 

Come ready to teach upside down through playful experimentation!

Create a visual and reflective map of your pedagogical comfort zones and unexplored territories to identify areas for growth and experimentation in your teaching practice.

Time Required: 45-60 minutes

Step 1: Establish Your “Home Base” (10-15 minutes)

Identify a core pedagogical approach or piece of course content that feels very familiar and comfortable to you. This is your teaching “home”—where you feel most confident and competent.

Reflection questions:

  • What teaching methods come most naturally to you?
  • What subject matter or skills do you feel you can teach with your eyes closed?
  • Where do you feel most authoritative and secure in the classroom?

Action: Place this “home base” at the center of your map using symbols, words, or drawings that represent this familiar territory.

Step 2: Map the Margins (15 minutes)

Now identify and map the edges of your familiarity—the “terra incognita” where the unfamiliar and unknown begin to take hold.

Reflection questions:

  • What teaching approaches make you nervous or uncomfortable?
  • What topics or skills do your students ask about that you struggle to address?
  • What pedagogical territories have you always wanted to explore but haven’t yet?
  • Where do you feel like an imposter or amateur?

Action:

  • Draw paths extending outward from your home base toward these margins
  • Use different textures, colors, or symbols to represent different types of unfamiliar territory
  • Mark areas as “unexplored,” “scary,” “intriguing,” or “necessary but avoided”

Step 3: Identify Border Crossings (10 minutes)

Look at the spaces between your comfort zone and your margins. These are potential “border crossings”—places where you might take small risks or experiments.

Reflection questions:

  • What would be a small, manageable step toward one of your margins?
  • Where have you already started to venture beyond your comfort zone?
  • What support or resources would you need to explore these border areas?

Action: Mark 2-3 specific “border crossings” on your map—concrete ways you could begin to explore your pedagogical margins.

Step 4: Plan Your Journey (10-20 minutes)

Choose ONE border crossing that feels both challenging and achievable for your next semester or quarter.

Action: Write a brief commitment to yourself about how you’ll explore this margin, including:

  • One specific action you’ll take
  • What you hope to discover
  • How you’ll document or reflect on the experience

Reflection Questions:

  • What patterns do you notice in your comfort zones vs. your margins?
  • How might venturing into your margins benefit your students?
  • What would it feel like to be a “tourist” in your own teaching practice?

2023: Imaginative Teaching

We invite all Pratt colleagues to join us for Imaginative Teaching, a playful community centered around exploring how classroom pedagogy can be considered through the lens of creative practices.

Imaginative Teaching will consider how your creative practices influences your teaching; and in turn, how does pedagogy shape (or limit or enhance etc) creative practices.  Any and all creative practices will be considered, so we invite colleagues from all schools and disciplines to join us.  We’ll begin exploring questions such as: How do you engage your creative side in the ways that you teach? Where do you find alignment or incongruences between your creative practice and your classroom or studio teaching? In what ways is teaching creative and in what ways is your practice akin to teaching?  Additional topics will be initiated by the curiosity of the group, and may include but not limited to: imagination, creative blocks, worldbuilding, safer spaces, and trust.  

Participants will be asked to collaborate with interdisciplinary colleagues to test out various modalities and practices. Our Playgrounds are always structured as incubators, with time to experiment, share experiences and develop new and innovative teaching modalities. Working together, we will imagine new ways of engaging creative practices directly through teaching.

Every teacher has favorite assignments, activities, or approaches they’ve developed over years of teaching. While these “darlings” may have served us well, they can sometimes prevent innovation or no longer serve our current students’ needs. This guide helps you examine and potentially revise these cherished elements of your teaching. 

Time required: 70-90 minutes

Step 1: Initial Inventory (20 minutes)

What is a Teaching Darling? This might be a favorite assignment you’ve used for years, a lecture you’re particularly proud of, a classroom activity you always include, a text or reading you love teaching, a way of structuring discussion you rely on, an assessment method you’ve perfected, or something else that you use frequently in your teaching.

Consider:

  • Which assignments do you most look forward to teaching?
  • What elements of your course do you never change?
  • What parts of your teaching give you the most pride?

Create three columns:

  • “My Darlings” – List your most cherished teaching elements
  • “Why I Love It” – Note why each is important to you
  • “Student Impact” – Honestly assess how students respond to each element

Step 2: Critical Examination (20 minutes)

For each “darling,” ask:

  • When was the last time I significantly revised this?
  • Do my current students engage with this as enthusiastically as past students did?
  • Does this serve my current learning objectives, or am I keeping it because I like it?
  • What student feedback have I received about this element?
  • How much class time does this take, and is it worth it?

Step 3: The Release Process (30 minutes)

Choose one “darling” to kill off. What made this element effective when you first developed it? What has changed in your teaching context since then? What might you gain by letting this go?

Step 4: Reimagining (30 minutes)

What could fill this space instead? What do your current students need? What new approaches might better serve your learning objectives? How will you assess the effectiveness of this change?

2022: Critique as Playground

Critique as Playground will explore de-centered frameworks that highlight/encourage collective and reparative modalities for critique in any classroom. There will be an emphasis on slowness, space, and silence/listening as a method for collectively reconsidering existing practices and cultures.

Topics will be initiated by the curiosities of the group, and may include but not be limited to: communication, collegiality, learning for the whole student, mental health and disability considerations, external guests and their roles in critique, and power dynamics. 

Sharing of experience is key as faculty will be asked to collaborate with interdisciplinary colleagues to test out various modalities and practices. Working together, we will build a collective resource that could be directly applied to teaching and critique practices.

Examine and rethink typical critique dynamics by identifying common roles that emerge during feedback sessions.

Time required: 40-50 minutes

Think about critique experiences you’ve facilitated or participated in. What archetypes of participation come up the most frequently? For example:

  • “The Wronger” (focuses only on problems)
  • “The Fixer” (jumps to solutions)
  • “The Supporter” (only gives positive feedback)
  • “The One-Wayer” (insists there’s only one right approach)

For each archetype, reflect and write:

  • How does this role manifest in your classroom?
  • What triggers this behavior in students or yourself?
  • How does this role help or hinder learning?
  • What alternative behaviors could be encouraged?

Design interventions:

  • What specific language could redirect these behaviors?
  • What structure changes could prevent these roles from dominating?
  • How might you pre-empt these dynamics in your critique setup?

Create a new framework:

  • What roles would you ideally like to see in critique?
  • How can you model these desired behaviors?
  • What preparation do students need?

2021: Canvas Playground

The Playground Institute is a faculty development series from Pratt’s Center for Teaching and Learning.  It will support seasoned and new faculty alike as they reconsider their asynchronous teaching and course design elements. The CTL’s Playground Institute will explore best practices in asynchronous learning, with a focus on utilizing Canvas and other technologies. Topics will include: faculty presence, engagement beyond Zoom, Liberatory LMS, Open Educational Resources (OER), and more. Hands-on techniques will be emphasized and faculty will be asked to collaborate with colleagues to test out various technologies and practices. Faculty will gain knowledge of various Canvas tools and multimedia resources that could be directly applied to their own courses and online teaching.

Participants will come away from the series: 

  • Understanding asynchronous student engagement techniques;
  • Creating online classroom tools and techniques for supporting their learners;
  • Keeping online classes accessible;
  • Understanding the role of Open Educational Resources;
  • Analyzing experience-based online tools for learning.

Using Canvas as our online course home-base, but augmenting it with various other tools, the Playground Institute will model an interactive mix of some synchronous and mostly asynchronous elements. 

 This resource provides a framework for reimagining LMS use while maintaining academic integrity and supporting student success. The key is to view the LMS as a tool for empowerment rather than just content delivery.

Reflection Questions:

  • How does your current LMS use reflect or challenge traditional power dynamics?
  • Where can you create more choice without sacrificing rigor?
  • How might your students benefit from more agency in their learning?
  • What barriers might prevent students from succeeding in your current setup?

What is a Liberatory LMS?

  • Decentralizes power dynamics
  • Promotes student agency and choice
  • Acknowledges diverse learning needs
  • Creates transparent pathways to success
  • Builds community through mutual respect

Practical Implementation Strategies

Course Organization

  • Traditional Approach: Linear, instructor-controlled progression
  • Liberatory Approach: 
    • Create multiple pathways through content
    • Allow student choice in assignment order
    • Implement mastery paths for differentiated learning
    • Use modules as “choose your own adventure” learning experiences

Assessment Practices

  • Traditional Approach: Standardized grading
  • Liberatory Approach:
    • Implement contract grading
    • Offer assignment choices
    • Create self-assessment opportunities
    • Use learning mastery gradebook focused on objectives rather than points

Student Agency

Enable students to:

  • Choose assignment formats
  • Set personal learning goals
  • Contribute to course content
  • Participate in course design decisions

Accessibility Features

  • Implement universal design principles
  • Provide multiple content formats
  • Create clear navigation paths
  • Use liquid syllabi that adapt to student needs

Posts related to the Playground:

2024 Summer Playground Institute: Meandering on the Margins 🗓

Join us for 2024 CTL Summer Playground Institute in May, where we come together in a playful community to meander on the margins. Through various creative mapping exercises, participants will identify the boundaries of familiarity and be challenged to step outside their comfort zones and experiment with new pedagogies, spaces, worlds, locations, emotions, and more!

Read More »
April 3, 2024

2023 Summer Playground Institute: Imaginative Teaching

We are very excited to announce the 2023 CTL Summer Playground Institute that will run for 6 synchronous half days and 2 asynchronous days in mid-May. We invite all Pratt colleagues to join us for Imaginative Teaching, a playful community centered around exploring how classroom pedagogy can be considered through the lens of creative practices. Click here for more information!

Read More »
March 30, 2023

Critique as Playground

We are very excited to announce our newest CTL 2022 Summer Institute that will run in mid-May. We invite all Pratt colleagues to join us for Critique as Playground, a playful community to explore critique practices and pedagogies for faculty who are serious about establishing their classroom as a supportive and inclusive environment.

Read More »
April 8, 2022

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