About this session

Thursday, 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Sesame Workshop’s Watch, Play, Learn: Leveraging educational media for playful learning in crisis contexts

For crisis and conflict-affected settings, evidence establishes the link between early childhood interventions and mitigation of the effects of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) (Bouchane, et al., 2018). The 43 million children forcibly displaced around the world face significant risks to their healthy cognitive, social, and emotional development (UNHCR, 2024). Play-based educational mass media offers critical learning opportunities, at scale, to help mitigate these impacts, with recent evidence demonstrating the power of media to deliver learning for children affected by conflict and crisis (Global TIES for Children, 2023). This symposium will build on this emerging body of evidence by highlighting the development and impact of Watch, Play, Learn (WPL), a series of early learning videos designed to mitigate the effects of learning loss in the midst of conflict and displacement. The first paper will provide a theoretical foundation for playful learning and expand its current conceptualizations to include on and off-screen relationships as a form of guided play. The second paper will detail the development and refinement of a global play-based curriculum for WPL to support children’s math, science, social-emotional learning, and health and safety knowledge. The third paper will include findings from a randomized control trial to assess the WPL’s impact on children’s emotional development and early math skills among Venezuelan migrants and Colombia children in Colombia. The session will conclude with the discussant contextualizing these results, showcasing how, by using an evidence-based approach to supporting children in crisis, we can leverage educational media to support children's learning and development.

Paper #1
Title	From theory to practice: Applying the science of learning to children’s media in crisis contexts
Presenting author	Dr. Jennifer M. Zosh, Ph.D., Penn State University, Brandywine, United States

Paper #2
Title	The intersection of playful learning, children’s media, and crisis contexts: Sesame Workshop’s Watch, Play, Learn
Presenting author	Carolina Casas, Sesame Workshop, United States

Paper #3
Title	Experimental impacts of social-emotional and math-focused media on Colombian and Venezuelan refugee and migrant children
Presenting author	Emily Franchett, New York University, United States

View all paper details

Session chair
Kim Foulds, Ph.D., Sesame Workshop, United States

Discussant
Rosemarie Truglio, Ph.D., Sesame Workshop, United States

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