Level Up Your Curriculum Series – Part 1 // Learning Through Play – A Return to Human-Centered Education // Before we had schools, lesson plans, and standardized tests, we learned through play. Children explore, experiment, and engage with the world naturally through curiosity-driven learning. This is the essence of Ludic Learning—an approach that embraces play as a powerful tool for developing skills, fostering creativity, and making learning engaging, effective, and enjoyable. // Traditional education has moved away from play, but research shows that interactive, game-based learning environments improve retention, motivation, and problem-solving abilities. My photography critique game, Lumen, is a testament to this. When critique was turned into a low-stakes, playful simulation, students became more confident, more engaged, and more articulate in discussing images. // This post explores the science of play-based learning, why we moved away from it, and how Game-Based Learning & Gamification can help us bring it back into the classroom. Let’s reclaim play as a central force in education and level up our lesson plans! 🚀