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Strong advocates for play in schools in our home states of Oklahoma and New Hampshire, Drs. Casey and Spivey and Jennifer Berube met at the NAEYC 2023 conference. We formed a collaboration through which we have shared the value of play and playful learning for children, play for adults, and the interpersonal neurobiology of play with countless educators.
Erin M. Casey,
Erin M. Casey,
Ph.D.
Ph.D.
Associate Professor in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum
The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK
Email: Erin.M.Casey-1@ou.edu
Phone: (405) 325-1498
Dr. Erin M. Casey is an Associate Professor of Early Childhood Education at the University of Oklahoma whose work sits at the intersection of play, neuroscience, and well-being across the lifespan. With eight years in kindergarten and first-grade classrooms and more than 18 years in higher education, she brings rare depth to questions most educators have never thought to ask: What does play do to the brain? And what happens when we stop playing?
Dr. Casey earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Early Childhood Education from the University of Arkansas (2010), and she continues expanding her expertise at the frontier of educational neuroscience, currently completing Harvard's Fundamentals of Neuroscience series.
Her scholarship spans more than 20 peer-reviewed publications and extensive national and international conference presentations. Her most recent book, Play Across All Spaces: Why the Brain Needs Play and How to Foster Play in Any Context (Kendall Hunt Innovative Ink, 2026), which she co-edited with Dr. C. Dewhirst, brings together research on play's neurological foundations, its role across the lifespan, and its presence in contexts as unexpected as military service. She also contributed several chapters to the volume, including work on interpersonal neurobiology, neuroception, and her original Neuroception-Play-Integration Cycle framework.
A hallmark of Dr. Casey's research is her focus on adult and teacher play — the idea that educators who engage in meaningful, personally fulfilling play are more effective, more creative, and more resilient in their classrooms and in their lives. This work has taken the form of teacher play labs, free play observations, and experiential professional learning experiences that transform how educators understand both themselves and the children they serve.
In 2024, Dr. Casey was recognized with two prestigious awards: the National Association of Early Childhood Teacher Educators Outstanding Educator Award, and the University of Oklahoma Provost Award for Outstanding Engaged Teaching — presented to a single faculty member university-wide for demonstrating the highest standards of excellence in teaching through community collaboration, institutional impact, and high-quality learning experiences.
Through this professional development series, Dr. Casey brings her research on play and the brain directly to practitioners, parents, and professionals across ages and settings — because play isn't just for children. It is a biological need, a neurological gift, and a pathway to well-being at every stage of life.
Jennifer Berube,
Jennifer Berube,
M.Ed., CAGS
M.Ed., CAGS
Ph.D. anticipated May, 2026!
Ph.D. anticipated May, 2026!
Playful Learning Coach
The Playful Learning Institute
Neighborhood Villages
Boston, MA
Email: jenniferberube@gmail.com
Jennifer Berube is a playful learning coach, educator, and researcher whose work sits at the intersection of play, student-centered teaching and learning, and teacher well-being. With over two decades of classroom experience spanning preschool through third grade, she has seen firsthand what play makes possible for children: the curiosity, the confidence, the joy of learning that emerges when children are given space to follow their own wondering. Five years coaching and providing professional development for play-based learning to teachers through the University of New Hampshire Early Childhood Coaching Initiative led her to witness something the research had not yet caught up to: when educators teach through play, something shifts in them too. They become more confident, more creative, and more fully themselves in the classroom. That observation became the foundation of her research.
Her doctoral research at Lesley University examines how kindergarten teachers who implement play-based learning describe its influence on their professional identity, self-efficacy, and well-being, bringing empirical rigor to something educators have long felt but rarely seen studied. That research earned her the 2024 NAECTE Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Award.
Jennifer currently coaches and provides professional development to PreK through third grade teachers as a Playful Learning Coach with the Playful Learning Institute at Neighborhood Villages, and serves as an adjunct professor at the University of New Hampshire and Southern New Hampshire University. She is a certified arts integration specialist and coach, and holds a C.A.G.S. in Educational Leadership.Through her work with UNH, she co-developed a suite of teacher resources on play-based learning that are now widely used across New Hampshire.
Her forthcoming book, Guided Play Principles and Practices, PreK to 3 (Teachers College Press, 2026), co-authored with University of New Hampshire Early Childhood Education Coaching Initiative colleagues, translates research on playful learning into practical guidance for classroom educators.
Jennifer has presented her work at national and international conferences, including NAEYC, NAECTE, the US Play Coalition, and the International Play Association.
Playful teaching is not a strategy. It is a way of being, and Jennifer's research shows that when teachers have the autonomy to teach through play, their professional identity, self-efficacy, and well-being are strengthened. The permission to embrace playful learning is not just something we owe children. It is something we owe the educators who show up for them every day.
Emily Spivey
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