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     Managing LEGO Learning

LEGOengineering.com's latest survey, "Managing LEGO Learning", explores how educators incorporate LEGO resources into their teaching. One hundred and twenty-three educators from thirty-six countries responded to the survey. The hardware and software they use is the same, but based on the results of the survey none of them use LEGO materials in quite the same way. This survey looked at several components of LEGO learning: setting up the classroom for lessons, activity introduction, and activity implementation. This article will describe educators' responses to the survey questions. We realize there is no single best answer to these questions. We want to give educators an overview of what other teachers are doing in their classrooms. You, as the teacher, are the best judge of what will work in your classroom situation.

     Setting the Scene

There are numerous resources for educators that offer LEGO activities, but it is not always easy to find activities that will match target objectives. The most popular strategies the responding educators use are to write new activities themselves, to search websites for existing activities, and to use examples from real engineering products and then base activities around principles related to those products, altering them to them to fit their needs. As educators choose and create activities, there are several academic goals that they hope to address, as shown by the following chart:

 

One of the concerns accompanying the inclusion of LEGO materials in educational settings is having enough help to provide quality interactions with all students. Fifty-one percent of responding educators do not have additional adult support while using LEGO materials in an educational setting. Other educators described helpers from several backgrounds. Some enlist parents with and without a science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) background. Others work with a classroom aide, another teacher, or student/peer support.

     Activity Introduction

A 72.6% majority of the educators that responded to the survey report that they begin a LEGO-based activity by posing a problem to the students and letting the students guide the course of the activity. Lectures and handouts serve as a starting point for some of the educators. One teacher feels that the introduction of a mini-competition with prizes motivates students. Another educator shows the students a video from the previous class, saying, “They see their peers working and are excited to get started.” Most of these teachers feel that demonstrations are integral to activity introduction and that they help the students work. As with other aspects of LEGO learning, a variety of techniques are utilized for demonstrations during activity introduction. The most popular is a teacher-built LEGO model. Other techniques are the showing of movies and pictures found on the web or in books. LEGO demos can also include solutions built by the studentsÙ peers. Thirteen percent of the responding educators said they use non-LEGO models to demonstrate possible solutions.

             

Introducing Activities Pose a problem and let the students guide the course of the activity. Use lectures and handouts. Introduce a mini-competition with prizes. Use video of past students' projects. Use teacher-built or student-built model for a demo. Show movies and pictures found on the web or in books. Use a non-LEGO model as a demonstration of principles.

In order to ensure student participation, educators will often set up participation guidelines when introducing an activity. Below are popular strategies to encourage student participation.

Participation Strategy	Percentage of Respondents
Closely observe the students.	72.2
Assign roles to students and rotate roles.	38.9
Assign roles to students.	30.6
Students rate other group members.	20.8
Other: journal, self-monitor, individual tests	15.3

Another element of activity introduction is selecting building and programming concepts to target. Survey respondents mentioned that allowing issues to naturally arise and then having students problem-solve is a worthwhile strategy for learning programming and building techniques. Another method that works well for both programming and building is to show students a program or structure that is not working and to have students troubleshoot what is wrong. Short lectures are also used to introduce targeted building and programming concepts.

 

Teaching Programming Robot Educator Activity Sheets Examples of successful and unsuccessful programs for troubleshooting Mindstorms tutorials Storyboards for each new behavior - Students discuss how the new piece fits in with what they already know. They repeat this activity until they understand the new programming concept. Manipulation of magnetic icons

 

Teaching Building Examples of basic building tasks and the discussion of related concepts Building guides found on the internet Building plans - first, build from the directions and then consider how to modify for a different attachment, size of wheels, gears, etc. Scaffolded building - students start with a simplified version of the target building concept and then work with a partner to solve a slightly more complex problem involving the same building skill.

 

     Activity Implementation

The survey question to which the most survey respondents agreed was having students follow the design process as they work. Eighty-nine percent noted that their students either directly follow the design process, documenting each step, or that the students loosely follow the design process and use several of the steps to outline their interaction with LEGO pieces during the building process.

Steps of the Engineering Design Process

Massachusetts' Department of Education's Engineering and Technology Standards

Twenty-nine percent of responding educators do not require the students to plan before building and programming, while the majority of educators make students plan either with a written description, or with a sketch and a written description. Twenty-one percent of educators require the students to submit a design plan before they can obtain LEGO pieces, and forty percent require students to justify the need for additional pieces outside of kits before they can have them.

Sample Planning Handout: First Grade Planning Sheet

Educators posted several ways they deal with ensuring that their students test their designs. Some rely on the self-motivation or peer pressure to motivate students to create “cool” robots. Other educators create more formal measures to facilitate testing. The following chart illustrates the methods preferred by the survey takers:

 

Having students test their designs is only part of the design process. Optimally, students should be able to look critically at their designs and make relevant changes. Educators were asked how they get students to look critically at their designs and offered tips. One educator described what he does:

“Several times throughout the building process, the teams must present their project and the progress they have made to their peers. They are not graded. The presentation serves as motivation enough. For those students who aren't using their time well, the first presentation is more than enough of a wake up call. When they see what their peers have done, they almost always put a lot of effort into being better prepared for the next presentation.”

Another educator asks students questions as if she does not understand what they are doing. “I pretend to make the wrong assumption so they need to explain.” Other tips offered by educators include having each students spend five minutes silently looking at othersÙ designs and then bringing ideas back to their group, asking students to describe one thing they would like to function better, and suggesting additional tests that target specific design problems.

Since very few robotic creations are perfect the first time, redesign is the next step. In only ten percent of the educational settings of responding educators the students do not redesign. The majority, though, do include redesign as part of their educational experience. Forty-four percent felt that the self-motivation of the students gets them to make design changes. There are several strategies used by teachers to get the students to redesign since self-motivation is not always present.

 

Testing Guidelines Students pitch their designs and the teacher asks open-ended questions. Students fill out a worksheet to describe modifications. The final design must work perfectly each time it is used. Students follow a rubric with design requirements. Students are only allowed to redesign three times.

 

The final stage for many educational settings is the sharing of projects. This stage of the process is executed both formally and informally. The most popular methods used by the responding educators are written documentation, posters, oral presentations, journal entries, demonstrations, and the production of a video.

As with each step in the design, presentation, and implementation of LEGO activities, the choices made by educators are based on their own educational settings, their teaching styles, and their knowledge of their students. The suggestions in this article are only a sampling of what educators worldwide are doing.

 

New Community Section of LEGOengineering.com   The surveys on LEGOengineering.com have been a great way to help educators see what other educators are doing.  But - LEGOengineering.com is excited to expand the ways in which it helps educators share ideas. A new component has been added to the Community section of LEGOengineering.com that allows educators to share ideas, pictures, movies, and activities.  It was designed specifically for educators and we hope it will facilitate a great LEGO Educator Community.     Visit the New Community Section

 

Article by Elissa Milto ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )