Incorporating the Pedagogy of Play Through Gyotaku in an Undergraduate Oceanography Course

The Pedagogy of Play

Ponder for a minute about what you think of when you hear the word ‘play.’ For many, the word likely conjures pleasant childhood memories of spirited experiences where engagement was willing, choices were ample, and participants felt momentary joy. Play embodies the notion that the activities or experiences within the play process are often more significant than the result or product. While educators and scholars have found the term difficult to define because of its nebulous nature, some have attempted to characterize the conditions or elements under which play occurs. For example, Eberle (2014) suggests that play consists of anticipation, surprise, pleasure, understanding, strength, and poise. Furthermore, play allows participants to explore some of their emotional, physical, and intellectual capacities. More recently, a group of scholars at Harvard University has extensively reviewed the literature on learning, play, and neuroscience to further define the characteristics of play as a learning process (Mardell et al. 2023). Their detailed framework outlines five characteristics of playful experiences: joyful, meaningful, actively engaging, iterative, and socially interactive. Regardless of how play and its constructs are defined, perhaps, as Eberle (2014) insists, “at its most elemental, play always promises fun.”

In early childhood education, the pedagogy of play has emerged as an educational approach that places the process of play, and those engaged in it, at the forefront of learning and development. Langton (2023) concludes that the academic benefits of play-based pedagogy in early childhood education are tremendous and include the enhancement of children’s social and emotional skills, such as collaboration, self-regulation, and empathy, while simultaneously supporting student learning goals and standards. Despite these and other benefits, the pedagogy of play is rarely used, as educators often resort to more familiar instructor-centered and directed learning. This is especially true in higher education, in which incorporating the tenets of the pedagogy of play is even rarer for various reasons. For example, instructors may not have the pedagogical expertise or confidence to design and implement quality experiences embodying play (Bennet, Wood & Rogers 1997). Leather, Harper, and Obee (2021) state that faculty may feel that incorporating play could diminish their instructor-centric control and provoke concerns about taking a risk in adopting a pedagogical strategy new to them. Despite instructors’ perceived challenges and barriers, the authors argue for the integration of play as pedagogy in postsecondary institutions. Likewise, through her phenomenological study, Forbes (2021) highlighted that play in higher education ignites an open and engaged learning stance to enhance learning, among other positive outcomes. Helijakka (2023) highlights that activities that include play enhance creativity by providing students with joyful moments of discovery in a safe environment where failure is permitted.

A small but increasing number of higher educators have come to incorporate the pedagogy of play into their learning experiences and have disseminated their successful examples and outcomes in mainstream journal articles and books (e.g., Bond & Zakrajsek 2023; Ayling 2012; James & Nerantzi 2019). For instance, in their nursing program, Dean and Parson (2021) used various play activities to enhance students’ creative problem-solving skills, build social relationships, and to strengthen empathy and self-esteem, stating that these are critical skills for nursing students to develop. Some researchers have focused on providing strategies for higher education instructors to facilitate the incorporation of play into any course or curriculum. For example, in their review of 24 published studies on the incorporation of play into higher education courses, Hijkoop, Skovbjerg, and Bekker (2024) found three broad strategies through which faculty may apply playful approaches in learning contexts: adopting a playful activity, adding a playful twist to augment existing learning formats, and designing solutions based on a playful learning framework.

In this article, we highlight the use of the first strategy, in which an activity was designed to embrace the elements of play and implemented into an undergraduate course. Specifically, we chose to incorporate an activity involving gyotaku, a traditional Japanese fish printing method, into a primarily lecture-based introductory oceanography course.

Background on Gyotaku

Dating back to the mid-1800s, gyotaku, translated to “fish rubbing” or “fish impression” in English, refers to the traditional process by which Japanese fisherman recorded their catches (Miyazaki & Murase 2020). Before the advent of the handheld camera in the late nineteenth century and its widespread use in the mid-century after, anglers would position their catch, cover it with ink, and lightly rub paper over the inked specimen to create images memorializing their catch. The paper would include the catch date and location, the name(s) of the fisher(s), any witnesses, the local name of the fish species, and the fishing tackle used (Miyazaki & Murase 2020). The suspected origins of gyotaku and their various historical and present-day forms as both art and science have been comprehensively detailed in a recent doctoral dissertation (Ramirez 2016). While historical gyotaku images are highly revered as an art form, scientific information can also be garnered from them. For example, digitizing 261 gyotaku rubbings helped amass distributional data related to fish diversity records and identify extinctions (Miyazaki & Murase 2020, 2022).

With little to no training needed for participants, K-12 educators at schools, museums (e.g., Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History), aquariums (e.g., North Carolina Aquarium, Birch Aquarium at Scripps), and non-profit organizations (e.g., White Memorial Conservation Center) have used gyotaku as a playful learning tool to engage children and adults for decades. For instance, created for high school educators, Klemm (1996) highlighted the use of gyotaku in the Hawai’i Marine Science Studies Program’s student lab manuals. These manuals aimed to help students learn about external fish anatomy, practice observational skills, and gain proficiency in handling biological specimens. Baggett and Shaw (2008) later used gyotaku to expose students to the history of printmaking, allowing them to explore artistic elements such as color, texture, line, shape, and space. Additionally, engaging students through gyotaku provides a platform to learn about the historical and cultural aspects of Japanese anglers (Stokes 2001). It also allows educators to incorporate culturally responsive teaching into their courses (Mackenzie 2021). Stokes (2001) pointed out that integrating gyotaku into classroom activities facilitated different learning styles suited for kinesthetic, tactile, or visual learners.

Given the many educational benefits, ease of deployment, and attributes that align with many of the pedagogical elements of play, this project aimed to use gyotaku as a playful activity in an undergraduate oceanography course. Through the creation and implementation of a post-activity survey, and both peer faculty and instructors’ observations, students’ learning and level of engagement were quantified. While the use of gyotaku as an educational activity is certainly not new, its use in higher education to promote the pedagogy of play has not been adopted nor fully disseminated until now.

Overview of the Undergraduate Course

The College of Life Sciences at Thomas Jefferson University offers an introductory course in oceanography (BIOL319) covering the physical, biological, and chemical aspects of the world’s oceans, particularly emphasizing their human-induced changes. The 3-credit course meets twice weekly for 15 weeks of the fall semester in a face-to-face modality. The course is structured such that “Theory Tuesdays” are 90 minutes of didactic lecture-based presentations where the instructor uses slides and videos to provide background knowledge. “Application Thursdays” are 90 minutes of hands-on application of learned material using collaborative, active-learning activities that hone data visualization, data analysis, critical thinking, and communication skills. The course is offered as an advanced science elective to undergraduates in biology, biochemistry, chemistry, or pre-medical majors, but any student who has completed freshman biology and chemistry is free to enroll. The course is capped at 24 students and perennially meets that capacity due to its popularity. The course does not have a laboratory component but does involve lab-like activities during “Application Thursdays” (e.g., a fish dissection, analysis of previously collected data, etc.). Unlike other core science courses that need hours dedicated to copious content delivery and a rigorous student outcomes assessment, this course allows the instructor to include more creative and less rigorous activities to achieve student learning and engagement. Therefore, incorporating aspects of the pedagogy of play and its elements seemed to be a natural fit for this course.

Gyotaku Activity

Various marine specimens (e.g., squid, octopus, belt fish, shrimp, pompano) were purchased fresh or frozen from local markets and stored in a refrigerator until the day of the activity. Rather than in a conventional classroom, we implemented this activity in a well-ventilated classroom equipped with a sink for rinsing fish and cleaning, large tables, and plenty of laboratory bench space for materials and specimens. The full duration of the class was allotted to provide students sufficient time for creative exploration and completion of the activity. The instructor set up the room before the start of class, so all necessary materials were ready for students to use.

To give students some knowledge of the process of gyotaku, students were required to view a video demonstrating the various techniques used to produce a gyotaku image (Supplementary link 1) before the activity. Students were encouraged to bring their lab coats, as fish oils and proteins can adsorb onto the surface of textiles, and odors may linger on students’ clothes well beyond the activity time frame. At the beginning of the activity, the facilitator gave a brief presentation highlighting the historical and cultural importance of gyotaku (Supplementary file 1). To optimize the time each student had to engage in the activity and to ensure collaboration and co-creation, students were asked to pair up.

At each table, each group received various supplies needed to conduct this activity (Figure 1). Using a large piece of cardboard, students chose their own species from an assortment of real and synthetic options provided on a separate table (Figure 2).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Using a simple 5-step process (Figure 3), students engaged in the activity for approximately one hour. While traditional gyotaku involves producing images using only black ink, students were given the choice of using various colors of either India or tattoo ink for their imprints. Watercolor paints were supplied to allow students to further colorize their dried images.

Figure 3

Upon completion of the activity, the prints were allowed to dry on the wall using labeling tape. Both India and tattoo inks dried within 10 minutes. Once dried, imprints that employed real fish were odorous, but this dissipated over a day or two. Brushes and sponges were thoroughly rinsed in the sink. Unused inks and ink bowls were carefully disposed of in plastic bags. The synthetic fish were washed and dried while the real organisms were disposed of in separate trash bags in outside trash receptacles to minimize lingering odors in the classroom. Cardboard was disposed of in the trash.

Assessment Tools

We designed a survey with six questions (4 Likert scale and 2 open responses) and administered it electronically to students (Table 1). For the Likert scale, 1 represented ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 represented ‘strongly agree’. Students had one week to complete it voluntarily and anonymously. Questions were formulated to assess the self-reported, perceived level of learning, enjoyment, and the organization of the activity. Questions also helped garner feedback regarding students’ likes, dislikes, and suggestions for improvement. A faculty member, the Director of the Philadelphia University Honors Institute at Thomas Jefferson University, was invited to observe the activity. She was asked to provide observations and feedback without specific prompts.

Examples of Students’ Images

The instructor captured photographs of all the final images created by the students, as shown in Figure 4. With the exception of one image, students took their final products home immediately or returned them to the drying wall days later to collect them.

Figure 4

Results of Student Survey

The survey was completed by 22 of the 24 students (92% response rate) who engaged in the gyotaku activity. The responses for the four Likert-scale survey questions were visualized using pie charts (Figure 5). Except for one student, students agreed (41%) or strongly agreed (55%) that the activity enhanced their learning. Most students (81%) strongly agreed that the activity was enjoyable. Most students agreed (36%) or strongly agreed (50%) that the activity was related to topics learned in the course. All students surveyed agreed (14%) or strongly agreed (86%) that the activity was organized. Responses to the open-ended question “What did you like about this activity? What did you dislike?” were tabulated verbatim (Table 2). A word cloud was generated using all responses (Figure 6).

Figure 5

Figure 6

Students were asked, “What can be improved for next time?”. Approximately 48% of students stated that they had no suggestions for improvement. Several students suggested that more instructions or examples would be beneficial. Additionally, students requested more species of organisms and ink options, along with some form of protective paper or tablecloth since the activity was messy.

Feedback from External Observer

The faculty member who observed the activity provided feedback from her visit, stating:

Recommendations for Future Iterations of this Activity

While we verbally encouraged students to bring in textiles to be printed on (e.g., their lab coats, new t-shirts, etc.) and supplied students with textile ink, only one student chose that option. In the future, giving students the option of purchasing an inexpensive white t-shirt or a new lab coat before the activity may increase their desire to use gyotaku on apparel. Apart from appreciating the cultural and scientific uses of gyotaku, this activity intentionally focused on using gyotaku as a playful act of learning and skill development rather than an opportunity to impart much about the specimens themselves. However, we recommend making simple placards of each specimen’s common and scientific names and placing them by the specimen. Furthermore, as this activity comes after a fish dissection activity earlier in the semester, we will ask future students to identify external anatomical features such as the dorsal, pectoral, and caudal fins, anus, lateral line, and gills where appropriate.

Although we told students that any specimen could be rinsed, filleted, and consumed, we did not build in enough time and resources to do so. In a novel study incorporating the pedagogy of play, Højer and Frøst (2017) augmented their gyotaku activity by preparing, cooking, and eating fish to attempt to overcome the “disgust barrier” and encourage diets richer in fish in 4^th to 6^th-grade students. This would be an interesting final step to take next time. In our activity, students were not trained in arranging the organism’s body to maximize detailed imaging. However, some became proficient with arranging fins and other features through trial-and-error iterations. Next time, we will supply participants with pins to hold fins or mouths in place for improved imaging. Lastly, this activity is ripe for collaboration with faculty members with design (e.g., printmaking, graphic design, textile design) or art history expertise, expanding the artistic and cultural learning experience for students.

Take Home Message

This article represents only one educator’s introductory foray into building the pedagogical aspects of play into an activity in an undergraduate oceanography course. While we hope readers use this example, we wish to challenge other educators, especially those in higher education, to embrace play—however they define it—as a learning tool in any classroom, laboratory, or field-based experience.