Our team is very honored to receive the generous donation and support from Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust that Jockey Club "Play n Gain" Project, a social-emotional learning research project, could be launched in 2018/19 school year, at kindergarten, family and different levels of the community, using face-to-face interactive games to develop children's social- emotional ability.

 

Our vision for game education is to " play together anytime, with anyone, anywhere". It is because if children can play games in accordance with the rules and work and cooperate with others (play with rules, work with rules), they will become precious human resources for society in the future. We believe that playing games is a natural education, and game itself is a communication language. As long as you master the skill of “using game interaction as a way of communication”, you can apply it in school and daily life when teaching children. Interactive game ideas come from everywhere in daily life.

 

The team hopes to implement the above ideas through Jockey Club "Play n Gain" Project. We work closely with 14 partner-kindergartens. Parents will learn and practice to host a game session during real school-hours; while teachers will learn to integrate interactive game into daily teaching. We also promote the ideas to local families and different levels of community, by nurturing parents and the members of society to guide children in daily life with interactive games. We prepare children for free play, by teaching children the essential social skills, and the skills can then be applied freely by children themselves when we practice free play with them.

 

We strongly believe that under the close cooperation and efforts of the stakeholders in the project, through the implementation and practice in these three years, the public will be aware that playing face-to-face interactive games can bring positive change to children at school, in family, and in the community, in terms of becoming more interactive, and at the same time improving social-emotional ability.

 

Here, I would like to thank you all again for joining us in this joyful and rewarding journey. Let’s bring our children a wonderful childhood with interactive games! I wish everyone of you staying positive, happy and blessed, achieving "Play n Gain".

 

Dr Sylvia LIU

 

Project Director

Jockey Club "Play n Gain" Project

Centre for Advancement in Inclusive and Special Education (CAISE)

Faculty of Education

The University of Hong Kong

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About Dr Sylvia LIU

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Acquired the Doctor of Education (EdD) in the University of Hong Kong, focusing on gifted education and talent development. Dr Liu has been studying how interactive team games develop social skills and individual talents since 2004. One of the research contributions is the concept model, "Social Star Mirror Model"(「社交閃星星」學習概念模型) , which systematically uses interactive games to enhance social skills, and confirms that interactive games brings positive and sustainable results to gifted children and other schoolchildren on their social communication and self-discipline capabilities.

 

Dr Liu successfully curated the "Pillars of Society" to train children with face-to-face interactive games.  The scheme was funded by the Hong Kong Education Bureau's Quality Education Fund in 2006 and has been implemented in primary schools since then. In 2016, it was further subsidized to implement the "No Play No Gain" Kindergarten Social and Emotional Learning Project. She has practised in universities, secondary schools, primary schools and kindergartens for more than ten years and has extensive experience in training and development for teachers, parents and students.  She is enthusiastic about social services and is often invited to work as a play education consultant, design train-the-trainer programmes and coordinate relevant projects.

 

From 2018, Dr Liu initiated Jockey Club “Play n Gain” Project, extending social-emotional learning from kindergarten to family and the community.