LEGO Serious Play in Post-Secondary Education and Professional Development
Fans of LEGO have always known that the brightly-colored building bricks are a gateway to creativity. With the advent of LEGO Serious Play products, these toys are now making waves in the professional world. LEGO Serious Play stimulates group problem solving and encourages participation during meetings. When the entire team uses their bricks to respond to questions asked by a facilitator, each individual brings something different and innovative to the table. Post-secondary educators have taken note, too. A new urban planning course at Birmingham City University will use LEGO Serious Play to develop students’ ideas about the future of smart cities. The success of LEGO Serious Play shows that toys are not only helpful to children’s learning, but to adults’ innovations as well.
One thing I’ve noticed in postgraduate teaching is that students often understand an idea better once they have to explain or physically work through it. That’s probably why activities like LEGO Serious Play can be useful beyond the classroom. They encourage students to question their assumptions before putting everything into a final academic document. Even details such as thesis and dissertation binding can matter when that work eventually becomes a permanent record of the project.