Professor Robin Mello recently partnered with Innoplay Studio, housed at the University of Exeter, in the UK. This program is focused on creating playful and story-rich classrooms to drive innovation. This new role will allow Mello to engage as faculty at InnoPlay in conjunction with her faculty role at PSOA.
Through her work at Innoplay, Mello hopes to further promote the concept of a “playful university” by continuing to develop creative practices and skills that are also shared here at UWM.
Playful universities and Innoplay
A playful university is best understood as emphasizing engagement and exploration in higher education. Robin Mello (Professor, Theatre) considers this a call to create learning environments that push against the paradigm of the stereotypical classroom environment.
Playful universities are meant to break away from rules and didactic methods–to make things more collaborative, creative, and enjoyable.
“If we apply the human response to play, to imitate, to engage, we create a much more vibrant, inclusive, and productive environment for learning,” said Mello. “This idea of having a playful university means you get to change things and embed what we call playful practice into a serious learning experience.”
Innoplay promotes creativity of this nature for students and teachers across a variety of educational and professional fields. It bases its work on the science of play and has been creating workshops and resources for engineers, businesses, medical facilities, and community centers.
“The more that we can get people to engage in material and knowledge building in a way that reduces stress, engages intuition, and introduces some ambiguities and challenges, the better off we are,” said Mello.
Mello was introduced to Innoplay back in 2019 when she met with founder Dr. Maarten Koeners at Stanford University. The two formed a professional relationship over Zoom, using Dungeon and Dragons to experiment with how to introduce play and storytelling into the classroom.
Mello then traveled to Exeter in England in October 2023 to lead a weeklong course on incorporating storytelling through playful means for instructors and faculty in higher education. She was also able, as a guest artist, to teach the practice of juggling, tying it into health and wellness.
Mello collaborated with Innoplay again this winter, teaching a virtual short course on how story and play are beneficial for diverse learners. After this workshop she was invited to be a faculty at Innoplay.
An example of Mello bringing play into her UWM classrooms is when she asks her students to play the roleplaying-based game called “For the Queen.”
“I challenge people to play the game but with qualifications that make it difficult to end things in a predictable fashion,” said Mello. “It helps weave storytelling into curriculum to teach resilience and creativity.”
Tie-in to UWM
With this new role, Mello will play an advisory role with Innoplay and also continue to collaborate on workshops and research-based projects. She will also remain as a full-time faculty member at UWM.
Mello describes her work as supporting UWM’s mission to creating experiences for students that are “robust and interactive,” while also being fun and driven by wellness. She views UWM as encouraging students to succeed by communicating and valuing good storytelling.
Part of Mello’s enjoyment of working with Innoplay is to expose her students to an educational approach that promotes freedom.
“We are lacking play and the ability to story tell in order to build knowledge,” said Mello. “My dream is that we become a storytelling playful campus opening up spaces and allowing more freedom of exploration into our classrooms.”
Innoplay and UWM have been strong partners in giving Mello a space to further her craft as an educator.
“Something I really appreciate about Innoplay is that they always act as co-collaborators. When I work with them they promote UWM and note that this is ‘in conjunction’ with Peck,” said Mello. “They have been so generous and inclusive. We have a real presence over there with this very unique thing.”
Story by Jason McCullum ’25