Prabhat Rai
Biographic Data
| ID | 6510580 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Prabhat Rai |
| GIVEN NAMES | Prabhat |
| FAMILY NAME | Rai |
| SIGNATURE | RAI P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Monash University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9344-2614 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Viv Ellis, Lauren Gatti, and Warwick Mansell, The New Political Economy of Teacher Education
Conceptual PlayWorld pedagogical practices in an Australian playgroup to engage children in learning science concepts
Playgroups in Australia bring parents and playgroup leaders together to enrich children’s experiences through play. Facilitated playgroups, led by teachers with a pedagogical purpose, are less well understood. This cultural-historical study investigated 16 imaginary play sessions involving 16 children, aged 13 months to 4 years, and their families over a 10-month period. It focuses on two key aspects of pedagogical practices: object-oriented play…
Exploring Science Concepts in Everyday Interactions with Infant-toddlers at Home
Family is the core institution for infant-toddlers’ science learning. However, little is known about how caregivers support infant-toddlers’ science concept formation at home. The study presented in this paper follows 18 families with infant-toddlers aged 4 to 24 months old (mean age 10 months old) over five weeks in an educational experiment of Fleer’s Conceptual PlayWorld (CPW) at home using We Are Going on a Bear Hunt story. 46 h of recorded d…
A cultural-historical study of how parents create conditions to facilitate children's transition to school in the Chinese context
Transition to school marks a significant change in children's learning and development and is of particular interest to families. However, relatively few studies focused on parental perspectives and strategies to support children during their transition from preschool to primary school in the Chinese context. Following a dialectical-interactive approach (Hedegaard, 2008b), this paper uses concepts of motives, demands, and crisis to develop a cult…
Noticing relationally
This study examines noticing relationally as an emerging pedagogical assessment practice within a Conceptual PlayWorld designed to foster STEM engagement among children and their caregivers in an Australian playgroup. A Conceptual PlayWorld ( Fleer, 2019a , Fleer, 2019b , Fleer, 2020 , Fleer, 2021 ) is a play-based pedagogical and learning model that engages children and adults in imaginary play to support STEM learning. Sixteen children aged 13 …
Conceptual Play Worlds
The introduction of intentionality and play-based learning in the Australian early years learning framework (2009, 2022) has brought forward a theory-practice contradiction. Early childhood teachers are expected to navigate between the longstanding tradition of designing interest-based programs and curriculum guidelines for intentional teaching to drive conceptual learning and children's development. Positioned as a continuum of child-led to teac…
Conceptual PlayWorld intervention in a toddler playgroup
Research affirms that when parents play with their toddlers in imaginary scenarios, the play of these infants becomes more sophisticated. From a Vygotskian perspective, the development of imaginary play supports formation of conceptual thinking. However, the majority of Australian parents report low confidence in their ability to support play, and advocate the desire to receive education about how to achieve this. Community playgroup settings off…
Parent pedagogical positioning to create conditions for preschooler STEM learning using a Conceptual PlayWorld approach
STEM education has become a national priority, critical to the future of the workforce and the building of competitive economies across the globe. The literature suggests that early engagement with basic STEM concepts supports mastery of STEM subjects in later school years and in the professions. This has generated a need to better understand the ways children learn STEM concepts in family settings where it is understood that much of children's c…
From objects to artefacts to props
Imagination is considered a highly desired mental function in the 21st century, yet little is known about the emergence of play and imagination in infancy and toddlerhood. This paper reports an educational experiment of We Are Going on a Bear Hunt Conceptual PlayWorlds (CPW) in family settings to explore this under-researched area. Eighteen families with infant-toddlers (18 children 4 to 24 months old, mean age of 10 months) were recruited, with …
Zoom play
The theorisation of digital technologies for play-based settings has received a great deal of attention. However, less is known about how zoom modalities, which are increasingly becoming commonplace at work and in the home, have impacted on the play of children in Family Day Care. Whilst theoretical attention has been given to conceptualising multimodalities in centre programmes, Family Day Care is uniquely different. This paper takes up this cha…
Theorising Digital Tools
The place of theoretical thinking in professional development
The Cultural Formation of Science Knowledge
Early Childhood Science Education from 0 to 6
Over the past three decades, our understanding of science learning in early childhood has improved exponentially and today we have a strong empirically based understanding of science experiences for children aged three to six years. However, our understanding of science learning as it occurs for children from birth to three years, is limited. We do not know enough about how scientific thinking develops across the first years of life. Identifying …
The social and cultural genesis of collective imagination during infancy
Collective Imagining
On entering formal education, infants face the demand of participating in collective educational rou¬tines and learning experiences. However, in this age period, the sense of collectiveness is still in an embry¬onic form. This study explored how infants enter into and experience the need for collectiveness and how teachers create the conditions for the development of a sense of collectiveness during infancy. Our educa¬tional experiment drew on a …
Collective imagination as a source of professional practice change
Methodological Challenges of Studying Children in a Living Laboratory
Digital technologies have created possibilities in research unavailable when Vygotsky first introduced his cultural-historical approach for studying children’s development. More needs to be known about the relations between methodology and method when using digital tools in the early developmental period (1-5 years). In this paper we introduce the concept of a living laboratory to capture the research dynamics of this cultural age period in famil…
Methodological Challenges of Studying Children in a Living Laboratory
Digital technologies have created possibilities in research unavailable when Vygotsky first introduced his cultural-historical approach for studying children’s development. More needs to be known about the relations between methodology and method when using digital tools in the early developmental period (1-5 years). In this paper we introduce the concept of a living laboratory to capture the research dynamics of this cultural age period in famil…
Collective Imagining
On entering formal education, infants face the demand of participating in collective educational rou¬tines and learning experiences. However, in this age period, the sense of collectiveness is still in an embry¬onic form. This study explored how infants enter into and experience the need for collectiveness and how teachers create the conditions for the development of a sense of collectiveness during infancy. Our educa¬tional experiment drew on a …
Collective imagination as a source of professional practice change
Methodological Challenges of Studying Children in a Living Laboratory
Digital technologies have created possibilities in research unavailable when Vygotsky first introduced his cultural-historical approach for studying children’s development. More needs to be known about the relations between methodology and method when using digital tools in the early developmental period (1-5 years). In this paper we introduce the concept of a living laboratory to capture the research dynamics of this cultural age period in famil…
The Cultural Formation of Science Knowledge
Early Childhood Science Education from 0 to 6
Over the past three decades, our understanding of science learning in early childhood has improved exponentially and today we have a strong empirically based understanding of science experiences for children aged three to six years. However, our understanding of science learning as it occurs for children from birth to three years, is limited. We do not know enough about how scientific thinking develops across the first years of life. Identifying …
The social and cultural genesis of collective imagination during infancy
Collective Imagining
On entering formal education, infants face the demand of participating in collective educational rou¬tines and learning experiences. However, in this age period, the sense of collectiveness is still in an embry¬onic form. This study explored how infants enter into and experience the need for collectiveness and how teachers create the conditions for the development of a sense of collectiveness during infancy. Our educa¬tional experiment drew on a …
Collective imagination as a source of professional practice change
Theorising Digital Tools
The place of theoretical thinking in professional development
Zoom play
The theorisation of digital technologies for play-based settings has received a great deal of attention. However, less is known about how zoom modalities, which are increasingly becoming commonplace at work and in the home, have impacted on the play of children in Family Day Care. Whilst theoretical attention has been given to conceptualising multimodalities in centre programmes, Family Day Care is uniquely different. This paper takes up this cha…
Parent pedagogical positioning to create conditions for preschooler STEM learning using a Conceptual PlayWorld approach
STEM education has become a national priority, critical to the future of the workforce and the building of competitive economies across the globe. The literature suggests that early engagement with basic STEM concepts supports mastery of STEM subjects in later school years and in the professions. This has generated a need to better understand the ways children learn STEM concepts in family settings where it is understood that much of children's c…
From objects to artefacts to props
Imagination is considered a highly desired mental function in the 21st century, yet little is known about the emergence of play and imagination in infancy and toddlerhood. This paper reports an educational experiment of We Are Going on a Bear Hunt Conceptual PlayWorlds (CPW) in family settings to explore this under-researched area. Eighteen families with infant-toddlers (18 children 4 to 24 months old, mean age of 10 months) were recruited, with …
Conceptual PlayWorld intervention in a toddler playgroup
Research affirms that when parents play with their toddlers in imaginary scenarios, the play of these infants becomes more sophisticated. From a Vygotskian perspective, the development of imaginary play supports formation of conceptual thinking. However, the majority of Australian parents report low confidence in their ability to support play, and advocate the desire to receive education about how to achieve this. Community playgroup settings off…
Viv Ellis, Lauren Gatti, and Warwick Mansell, The New Political Economy of Teacher Education
Conceptual PlayWorld pedagogical practices in an Australian playgroup to engage children in learning science concepts
Playgroups in Australia bring parents and playgroup leaders together to enrich children’s experiences through play. Facilitated playgroups, led by teachers with a pedagogical purpose, are less well understood. This cultural-historical study investigated 16 imaginary play sessions involving 16 children, aged 13 months to 4 years, and their families over a 10-month period. It focuses on two key aspects of pedagogical practices: object-oriented play…
Exploring Science Concepts in Everyday Interactions with Infant-toddlers at Home
Family is the core institution for infant-toddlers’ science learning. However, little is known about how caregivers support infant-toddlers’ science concept formation at home. The study presented in this paper follows 18 families with infant-toddlers aged 4 to 24 months old (mean age 10 months old) over five weeks in an educational experiment of Fleer’s Conceptual PlayWorld (CPW) at home using We Are Going on a Bear Hunt story. 46 h of recorded d…
A cultural-historical study of how parents create conditions to facilitate children's transition to school in the Chinese context
Transition to school marks a significant change in children's learning and development and is of particular interest to families. However, relatively few studies focused on parental perspectives and strategies to support children during their transition from preschool to primary school in the Chinese context. Following a dialectical-interactive approach (Hedegaard, 2008b), this paper uses concepts of motives, demands, and crisis to develop a cult…
Noticing relationally
This study examines noticing relationally as an emerging pedagogical assessment practice within a Conceptual PlayWorld designed to foster STEM engagement among children and their caregivers in an Australian playgroup. A Conceptual PlayWorld ( Fleer, 2019a , Fleer, 2019b , Fleer, 2020 , Fleer, 2021 ) is a play-based pedagogical and learning model that engages children and adults in imaginary play to support STEM learning. Sixteen children aged 13 …
Conceptual Play Worlds
The introduction of intentionality and play-based learning in the Australian early years learning framework (2009, 2022) has brought forward a theory-practice contradiction. Early childhood teachers are expected to navigate between the longstanding tradition of designing interest-based programs and curriculum guidelines for intentional teaching to drive conceptual learning and children's development. Positioned as a continuum of child-led to teac…
Early Childhood Education and Development (12 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Child Development and Digital Technology (8 works) · Developmental psychology (6 works) · The Imaginary (6 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (4 works) · Child Therapy and Development (4 works)