The Benefits of LEGO Education in the Classroom
We all know what LEGO is – those famous little colored bricks and pieces that you can make all sorts of things with. Well, what if we told you that, these days, many teachers use them as a powerful and innovative educational resource in the classroom? This is possible all thanks to LEGO Education.
LEGO Education allows children to learn through active methodologies, in which they’re the main players in the teaching-learning process. By using it, they can put into practice the knowledge they’ve acquired and express their ideas through building with blocks.
If you want to know more about this type of didactic tool, then read on!
Playing with LEGO in the classroom
There are different LEGO Education kits and packs, among which we can find:
- Story Starters
- Simple Machines
- Motorized Mechanisms
- More To Math
- Learn To Learn
- Build To Express
Each one is aimed at a specific age group, and has a specific purpose. However, there’s something they all have in common. They all help a child to enjoy and carry out playful learning, characterized by being fun, active, participative, interactive, and meaningful.
This type of LEGO products have been created with the intention of serving as resources for teachers to meet the curricular objectives of certain subjects. The aim is to enable a more effective, motivating, attractive, and inspiring way of teaching students.
In this sense, it’s important to emphasize that the teacher who intends to use LEGO Education in the classroom must act as a guide during the learning process. Therefore, the students themselves, in an autonomous way, are the ones who must find the solution to the different challenges and projects that the teacher proposes.
“Give the students something to do, not something to learn, and the doing is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results.”
– John Dewey –
LEGO Education can be used to work on all types of knowledge and skills, from social and communication skills to literacy development or STEM learning. STEM learning subjects are those related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The benefits of using LEGO Education with children
Using LEGO parts in the teaching-learning process has multiple benefits for children. Here are some of them:
- Promoting curiosity and the desire to learn.
- Helping develop psychomotor skills through construction with small pieces.
- Favoring the imagination and creativity when having to devise and create new constructions from scratch.
- Promoting collaboration and communication by having to work as a team, with the purpose of achieving a common goal.
- Helping to develop logical thinking. In order to fit the pieces properly, the child needs to analyze the situation and also structure the ideas well.
- Promoting problem solving, as the children have to solve each challenge by making certain decisions and also using critical thinking.
“Creativity is like LEGO, we can see all the pieces, but we still don’t know what we can do with them.”
– Anonymous –
LEGO Education: an innovative educational resource
So, from what we’ve seen so far, we can conclude that LEGO Education is an innovative educational resource. We’ve also seen that it promotes the integral development of children, adolescents and young people.
Currently, there are many teachers who have taken the step of including this teaching tool in the classroom, both at Early Childhood Education, Primary, Secondary and even University levels. They’ve found that it offers very good results at all levels of education.
So, if you’re a teacher and you want to make your classes much more enjoyable and fun, you should consider using LEGO Education. I’m sure your students will be enthusiastic about the idea, and maybe even a bit surprised!
Moreover, in this way, you’ll be enabling these new generations to enjoy a different sort of education, far removed from the traditional methods of pencils, books and paper. It’s a more motivating type of education where students come to class every day with a big smile and eager to learn.
Do you still have any questions? Do you need more information about it? Go to the official LEGO Education website and explore the 400+ lessons available for classroom use.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Zimmerman, B. (2017). Programming education for students of any age: LEGO® education-mindstorms® EV3 robotics. Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 33(1), 42-43.