Playing to Learn: Integrating Development & Research in Rural Tanzania

Please join the Office of International Studies in Education for a brown bag lunch series on international research.

 Presented by Dr. Maregesi Machumu and Dr. Bethany Wilinski 

In this talk we describe ongoing development work and research we are doing as part of the Tanzania Partnership Program (TPP), MSU’s interdisciplinary sustainable development project. We present a series of ongoing research and development projects that we have undertaken in response to the introduction of educational playgrounds at primary schools in TPP project villages. The overarching aim of these projects is to support teachers’ use of play-based learning in the primary and pre-primary grades and to develop a model for research-informed development and cross-cultural collaboration. Dr. Maregesi Machumu is a Lecturer in the Department of Educational Psychology and Curriculum Studies at Dar es Salaam University College of Education. His research interests are linking play and sports and learning, early literacy, curriculum development and professional development. Dr. Machumu has also worked with the Tanzania Partnership Program as a partner and consultant in the construction of school playgrounds in Lindi and Arusha regions. Dr. Bethany Wilinski is an assistant professor in the Department of Teacher Education at MSU. Wilinski draws on critical policy frameworks and employs ethnographic methods to study policy enactment in early childhood settings. In particular, she examines early childhood workforce issues and the lived experiences of pre- and in-service pre- kindergarten teachers in the U.S. and Tanzania. In addition to her domestic work, Wilinski studies pre-primary teacher education policy in Tanzania and leads projects for MSU’s Tanzania Partnership Program.