Librarian helps students with unique Lego® workshops

Alan Wheeler's innovative workshops using Lego® at Middlesex University are helping students from subjects such as Maths to Photography

A Liaison Librarian at Middlesex University is helping students resolves issues with their studies by using the unconventional method of playing with Lego®. Alan Wheeler teaches them how to work through problems and think outside the box with the plastic building blocks which are typically used by children to create objects.

Shortly after joining MDX eight years ago, Alan said he was ‘bombarded’ with Continual Professional Development (CPD) courses.  “One of the first CPDs was a day’s training in Cambridge looking at various different methodologies around learning,” said Alan.  “Lego was one of the first thing that they showed us and I just instantly connected with it in a way that I could see potential applications for what we did with our students. I was basically scrolling stuff down in my notepad all the way home on the train to get my ideas down before they disappeared. I went back to and said ‘we need to buy some Lego’.”

As it happened his predecessor had been inspired to get the University to purchase Lego® after a similar course but left soon afterwards, so there was an unopened box waiting for him. Alan taught himself via YouTube tutorials and attended a week long course with a Danish Lego® pioneer Robert Rasmussen who he praised for his ‘charisma and knowledge’ .

As a Lego® Serious Play® Facilitator, Alan holds workshops with students at the University looking at different aspects of learning which could revolve around group dynamics, motivation or a specific assignment and he will plan builds to address the issue. “I had a recent session with photography students and the only instructions from the academic was that they wanted to them to explore their relationship with photography through making models. I love instructions like this because I can interpret that however I want.”

Students are given ideas for a build, a time limit and instructions which Alan said can be “specific or vague because this is subjective and what I’m interested in is their interpretation of the instructions. A lot of students have played with Lego and it doesn’t matter if you haven’t because it is so incredibly intuitive to pick things up, build something and create ideas that it taps into a universal need we have to make models and do things with our hands.”

Interestingly, Alan told of how some students have proved unexpectedly creative. “I taught Mathematics students and their creativity was just wild. At no point could I tell what they were making until they explained the model they had made. We obviously try not to but can you assume what certain students will be like if they study a particular subject.”

Alongside the workshops, Alan has written academic papers such as Lego® Serious Play® and higher education: encouraging creative learning in the academic library and Exploring learning gain with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and visual ethnography (will include link). And he is also working on a PhD analysing the impact and results of Psychology students who were given the same set of Lego® separately. Using the Lego® can make often make students reminisce about their childhood.

“Sometimes people in my workshop say this feels like being a kid again. A couple of weeks there was a female student who in the middle of making something, who said ‘oh my god this feels like Christmas’ which was such an incredible thing to say and I’m not even sure if she knew she said it. And I didn’t pick it up until the workshop had finished because I didn’t want to break her concentration. When we spoke at the end and I mentioned it she said ‘yes it did feel like Christmas, that excitement you get as a kid on Christmas morning when you get presents and don’t know what you’re about to unwrap’.  Those little moments are amazing.”

Alan Wheeler