Cognitive and play space of educational institutions of the future: trends, models, cases

The play is a spontaneous, creative, and purposeful activity oriented towards child’s learning and personality development. To make the play effective, the educational institution organizes adequate cognitive and play space. The aim of the article is to analyze the main trends, models and cases of cognition and play space organization as well as the outlining of the most efficient methods that can be applied within the educational institutions of the future. In the article one used a number of theoretical methods including the analysis of scientific and pedagogical literature, the synthesis of research results and the main trends of play space organization in modern educational institutions. The following empirical methods of research were also applied: focus group interviewing, pedagogical observation, and closed questionnaire survey. To process the data obtained during the pedagogical experiment the methods of statistical analysis were used. The research results showed three main models of cognitive and play space organization at the modern educational institutions: nature-based or outdoor, indoor, and virtual ones. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. The choice depends on the learning objectives, institutional resources, teacher’s pedagogical readiness, technical possibilities of educational process, and external condition. The survey proves that it is necessary to combine the elements of different models to make the learning positive. In such conditions hybrid or mixed cognitive and play space is applied. Such space is focused on learning activity stimulation and child’s personality development in different conditions: outdoors, indoors, and virtually. The research demonstrates that well-designed hybrid cognitive and play space is essential for comprehensive and harmonious development of child’s personality within the educational process. The research showed that hybrid cognitive play space is an appropriate model for the education institutions of the future as it is characterized by dynamism and multifunctionality.