LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® In Multidisciplinary Student Teams

Abstract

This research paper reports on a series of undergraduate workshops that tested the LEGO ® SERIOUS PLAY ® (LSP) method for facilitating deliberation in multidisciplinary teams of students considering the social, ethical, and environmental implications of nanotechnology. As a wicked problem, nanotechnology warrants thorough examination and deliberation involving multiple stakeholders to ensure responsible innovation and governance. However, many conventional approaches to wicked problems fail to address the difficulty of cross-disciplinary communication in the absence of interactional expertise, and overlook proven creative problem solving methods. Despite nearly five decades of maturation in practices since the term 'wicked problems' first appeared in the literature in 1967, a need remains for exploring new approaches. LSP is a content neutral, hands-on facilitation method using boundary objects as a metaphorical vehicle for lowering the barriers to communication, thereby building empathetic perspective taking and increasing the "collision" of ideas to boost the collective creativity. The curriculum effectiveness and student experience was evaluated through pre-and post-surveys as well as summative focus group sessions. Findings show that the LSP method was useful in three respects: 1) it accelerated the socialization process essential for generating and sharing creative ideas by structuring interactions with material boundary objects, 2) it enabled students to externalize their ideas and perspectives in more explicit forms through the use of material metaphors, and 3), it facilitated the internalization of new knowledge.

Mathematics education for relevance, responsiveness, and viability in Africa within the Fourth Industrial Revolution era

“…By adhering to the highest levels of testing, the LEGO® Group ensures that its products meet the highest quality standards and demonstrate the greatest level of responsibility to its stakeholders by promoting an environment that fosters creativity and innovation (Jensen, Seager & Cook-Davis 2018). Random testing throughout the manufacturing process and customer input are all approaches through which quality assurance is carried out in research and development (R&D) (Zosh et al 2017).…”

Playing, Constructionism, and Music in Early-Stage Software Engineering Education

“…Sets were assembled in plastic sorting boxes before transportation to school. Other items included tablecloths to damp classroom noise (Jensen et al, 2018), sticky notes, rechargeable speakers, and instruments (our own and classroom resources) for scaffolding and performance. Instructions were created as a photo sequence (see example step in Figure 1).…”

Investigating the use of LEGO® Bricks in education and training: A systematic literature review

“…On the other hand, when LEGO® is introduced as a thinking tool, the outcome is highly likely to vary according to who is participating in the work. Furthermore, students are assigned to an individual LEGO® activity in some educational cases (Lindsay et al, 2017), while in other cases, they are assigned to collaborative work using LEGO® bricks (Dumitraşcu et al, 2014;Jensen et al, 2018). This suggests that LEGO® applications can be further classified according to the number of students engaged in LEGO® activities.…”