James (2013) described LSP as\n“a set of activities combining metaphorical modelling, building with Lego\nand peer discussion to explore complex issues”. The facilitator asks the\nparticipants questions that are closely linked to the problem the team is\ntrying to solve. Participants answer these questions by building models using\nLEGO bricks and sharing their stories and insights using metaphors and\nrepresenting one thing in the form of another. These metaphors can prove very\nuseful for an organisation or a team as Schon (1971) discovered that metaphors\nare a means of \u2018creating radically different ways of understanding things\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An\nexample of building a metaphor using LEGO bricks can be seen in Figure 1 below\nwhere the question explored by the participant was: \u201cHow to do you feel about\nyour workload?\u201d The metaphor shared through the Lego bricks in the photo was \u201cI\nam facing new challenges that feel like climbing a steep ladder that I don\u2019t\nknow where it will take me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n What really sets an LSP session apart from a regular meeting\nor workshop is not only the use of LEGO but the facilitation method that\nrequires everyone\u2019s voice to be heard and in equal terms. It\u2019s a very\ndemocratic process that gets everyone involved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Aim of this article is to share insights and experiences\nthat I gained using LEGO\u00ae<\/strong> SERIOUS PLAY\u00ae <\/strong>to facilitate Human Resources and\nOrganisational Behaviour seminars at\nthe University of Brighton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sharing the challenges and how I tackled them will hopefully\nstart a fruitful conversation with fellow teachers that are considering LEGO\u00ae<\/strong> SERIOUS\nPLAY\u00ae<\/strong> as a tool they could use in their classrooms. I also want to get\nfeedback from teachers that have already used LSP in their classrooms and how\nit worked for them and their students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Little background<\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was employed by Brighton Business School to facilitate 2\nseminars per week for 15 students per seminar. Each seminar lasts one hour and\nthe content is based on the lectures delivered by the module leader and other\nsenior lecturers. The module these seminars are part of is called Human\nResources Management and Organisational Behaviour. It\u2019s a first-year core\nmodule that Management students must take. Aim of the seminar is to answer\nquestions that the students may have after attending the lecture and explore\nsome of the theory in more depth. My personal aim facilitating these seminars\nwas to be as inclusive as possible, increase engagement (my goal was to have\n100% engagement) and participation which would hopefully lead to the students\nlearning a few things about management theory and writing good essays. My\npersonal aims dictated a lot of the decisions that in the end shaped the\nformula for these sessions. Before starting to teach I had already facilitated\nquite a lot of LSP workshops for various teams in different countries and had\nwitnessed the value that LSP can bring to a workshop as a facilitation tool so\nI decided to use it to try and achieve my goals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Challenges<\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n First challenge was time<\/strong>.\nOne-hour seminar means 50 minutes as the next teacher and students need to come\nin and get ready for their session. Fifty minutes are not enough for an LSP\nworkshop (or so I thought before I started). LSP workshops usually last at\nleast 2-3 hours if not a whole day depending on the aim of the session. At the\nstart of a workshop the facilitator will spend at least 30 minutes explaining\nthe methodology and showing participants how they can use their Lego to express\nmeaning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Second challenge was that students and especially first year\nstudents do not always go to lectures<\/strong>\nor do any reading<\/strong> before coming to\nthe seminar. What that meant was that I had to not only discuss the theory but\nalso go over the main points of the theory during the seminar because very few\nof them had any idea what we were talking about. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Third challenge was that students do not attend all seminars<\/strong>. During term I had\nanything from 3 to 15 students attend my seminars. Some of them turned up every\ntime, some of them I saw once or twice. That was an interesting challenge and\nmaybe a test for the LSP methodology. Would students that attend more seminars\nhave an \u201cadvantage\u201d over students that don\u2019t attend as often? LSP is a skill on\nitself so the more someone uses it to express themselves the better they become\n(more on that later). Would LSP turn the students that do not attend often\naway? <\/p>\n\n\n\n How did I meet the challenges?<\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was lucky that my first seminar run before the first lecture,\nso I didn\u2019t have any lecture content to go over. What that allowed me to do was\nshow my students what LSP is and have them build Lego for the whole hour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What would I do with students that did not attend the first\nseminar though? I did not have a lot of options, so I just invited them to build<\/strong> and be part of the process<\/strong> and hoped for the best. Some picked it up\nimmediately and started building, others needed some time and help from me or\ntheir peers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The design of my sessions was simple but worked well after\nsome finetuning. I started every session with a warm up question they had to\nanswer with Lego. Then went on to talk about some of the theory they had to\nexplore depending on the theme of the session, then another question that would\nbe answered with Lego and finally a bit more theory. I would sometimes ask them\na third question to answer with their Lego but we did not always have the time\nfor that. This is how a typical session would unfold: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Let\u2019s see a more specific list of questions and theories\nfrom a session I delivered on Motivation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The questions were answered by the students using Lego and\nnot in a traditional \u201craise your hand, give me the answer way\u201d. Everyone built\nthe answer on their own and then shared them with the group. In LSP, participants\nbuild an answer to the question silently and then they share it with the team.\nThe facilitator or the other members of the team can ask questions after each\nparticipant is done explaining their model or after everyone has explained\ntheir models. This sharing part of the process gave me great opportunities to\nask the students questions about their Lego models and have them reflect on the\ntheory or think about how to solve the problem we were discussing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the module I facilitated a roundtable\ninterview where students shared their experiences throughout the module. Most\nof them mentioned that the most useful part was the questions I asked after\nthey described their models. These questions gave them an opportunity to\nreflect and add to their ideas and concepts. \nStudents also reported increased engagement, participation, creation of\nknowledge and a safe space for quiet students which are things that me and\nother educators observing some of my sessions agree with. That last insight on\ncreating a safe space for more quiet students was very important for me and was\nhigh in my goals list. I wanted everyone to participate and share their ideas,\nnot just the people that were the loudest. Some students mentioned that by\nremembering the models they built they gained access to memories of the\nconversations we had around the subject area that helped them write better\nessays it the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another experiment I did was build with them. Usually in LSP\nthe facilitator does not build with the participants as the context might be unfamiliar\nto the facilitator. If I run a workshop for an oil company, there is not a lot\nI can contribute to the conversation about how to run their business. It was\nvery different with the students though. Building with them was an opportunity\nfor me to be part of the group, lead by example and convince them about the\nvalue of the methodology. They enjoyed that I shared my ideas on the subject\narea that way and allowed them to ask me questions about my Lego model that\nfacilitated a non-threatening (for both parties) conversation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n To sum it all up<\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n I believe that even though LSP has been explored as a\nlearning tool in higher education before (Barton\n& James, 2017; James, 2013; Montesa-Andres,\nGarrig\u00f3s-Sim\u00f3n & Narangajavana, 2014) there is no empirical evidence\nfrom sessions like the ones I am describing above. What we see in most cases\nare accounts of activities that revolve around but are not the student\u2019s and teacher\u2019s\nday to day reality learning like career development activities (Barton & James, 2017; James, 2013).\nThis was also a seminar that run for the whole academic year so some of the\ninsights and data I got through the student interviews describe the effects of\nseveral seminars rather than just one or two sessions. What I tried to do using\nLSP was change the whole way a seminar is run. I challenged myself and my\nstudents to move away from the traditional way of doing things. I think I got\nsome things right and I did achieve some of my goals to a certain extend. I\nfeel it was worth going through the pain of rethinking the whole concept of\nwhat a seminar is even though there were students that I saw one or two times\nduring the whole year and there were students that did not do very well with\ntheir essays. Was that my fault or the Lego\u2019s fault? I am not very sure as\nthere are many other reasons students might not attend a seminar or not write a\ngood essay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next challenge? Write up a research paper to share these\ninsights with the rest of the world! <\/p>\n\n\n\n Until then I have a challenge for you. Pick up a handful of\nLego bricks and build on your own or with friends and family. Try to answer\nquestions like \u201chow was my day\u201d, \u201cwhat is my biggest challenge at the moment\u201d\nor \u201cwhat does the perfect holiday look for me\u201d and you will too know the power\nof LSP in no time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Feel free to send me an email if you are interested in\nknowing more about Lego Serious Play and how to use it for your teaching.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bio<\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n My name is Vasilis Gkogkidis (if you want to pronounce my\nlast name, take the two Ks out and you will do just fine) and I started my PhD\nat SPRU at Sussex university on September 2018. Before that I was working full\ntime for a gamification consultancy called Gamification+ that is based in\nBrighton. I have a Computer Science degree from the University of Macedonia in\nGreece and a postgraduate Business Management degree from the University of\nBrighton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I came across Lego Serious Play while looking for\ninteresting meetups around my hometown Thessaloniki, Greece. There was a Lego\nSerious Play meetup in Rome that inspired me to look up what Lego Serious Play\nis. I ended up co-facilitating a workshop with the LSP team in Rome. At the end\nof that workshop, I knew I needed to add Lego Serious Play in my professional\ntoolkit. Since then, I have facilitated more than 50 workshops in various\ncountries and settings, using the Lego Serious Play methodology, I have been\nthrough the Lego Serious Play 4-day training and I do believe that this is a\ntool that can be useful to quite a few different situations and contexts. How\nand why it works are questions that I am trying to look at through my PhD\nresearch and it\u2019s a conversation for a later time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n References<\/u><\/p>\n\n\n\n By Vasilis Gkogkidis Introduction LEGO\u00ae SERIOUS PLAY\u00ae (referred to as LSP for the rest of the article) is a methodology to facilitate workshops where participants respond to tasks by building symbolic and metaphorical models with LEGO bricks and present them to…<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/business-school-teaching\/files\/2019\/03\/TL-Blog-LEGO.jpg\")