Idea: the power of play
Building with Lego makes a lesson fun and challenging for students and teacher, says master Menno Kolk. He won an international prize with it.
Image: Angeliek de Jonge
Once a week the books are put aside and the bins of Lego come out. He calls them the Lego brick challenge: lessons in which children have to build something in two minutes and then write down their story. “I have already seen many beautiful stories, from a rescue from the water to a fight with a dragon,” says Menno Kolk. He is a teacher in group 5/6 of CBS de Flambouw in Nigtevecht and an independent consultant. Last year he attended a workshop on learning with Lego and he was immediately enthusiastic. “Lego is very practical to use and children want to get started right away. It really appeals to their imagination. When I ask to build a castle, I get 25 different castles, each with its own story.”
It triggers me to be creative with the teaching material and the goals
But it is also interesting for the teacher, he thinks. “You work across disciplines and you work on 21st-century skills such as communication and critical thinking. The use of Lego triggers me to deal creatively with the teaching material and the goals. I come up with an assignment and then I ask questions that I can use to guide the children in their learning process. By not judging, but asking questions like: 'What is this or how do you solve this?' they can continue. Nothing is wrong, that is the essence of playing.”
Pleasure
He builds up the lesson according to the theory of Lego Education: connecting with the material, building, reflecting and continuing to work. “But you decide how you are going to use Lego and for what purposes. That's what makes it so much fun for me," he says. “The knife cuts both ways. Students really enjoy it, they learn to tell a story and then they do their best on spelling when they know that you are going to pay attention to it.”
For example, by asking how many stones a child has used and how many of them are red, math objectives come into play. “If 12 of the 48 stones are red, then you're suddenly talking about fractions, because that equals 6/24 and 3/12,” he explains. “If I then ask how we can show this, students will automatically build bar charts. In this way the part of the whole becomes literally tangible.”
Inspiration
Kolk won the Lego Education teacher award this year with his Lego brick challenge, which allowed him to attend a symposium in Boston. Kolk: “There were teachers from thirty countries, fantastic workshops and keynotes. I have gained a lot of inspiration.”
If you keep playing, discovering and trying new things, it will always lead to a better product
For example, about what play actually is. Adults and children appear to differ in the way they do this. “That's really special,” says Kolk. “When I ask my colleagues, 'Make a duck', they all see problems first and then once they're done, they're not satisfied because the bill is square. The power of children is that they can have a duck ready in two minutes. It's a duck because they say it's a duck. As adults, we see many more bumps than is healthy. If you keep playing, discovering and trying new things, it always leads to a better product. I think that is a great insight.”
Learning line
His manager is now also enthusiastic and money has been set aside for a continuous Lego learning line. “In 2020, schools will be obliged to offer technology and this is a great way to do that. Lego offers programs for every target group. We have a learning lab with materials that enable discovery learning, from explaining stories with duplo, making videos with stop motion to programming. This allows us to be innovative in the field of science and technology within traditional education.”
He advises teachers who also want this to just get started. “Throw the method aside, see what you want to achieve and do it your way. It doesn't have to be with Lego, it can be done with anything. I still remember that in group 3 I was going to make soup. Such lessons are much more impressive than those from a book.”
This is an article from the Education Magazine of October 2018.
