Using LEGO Serious Play at Universities

Chrissi Nerantzi and Alison James wrote this booklet on “LEGO® for university learning: Inspiring academic practice in higher education”

This booklet is available as an open source guidebook that you can download here for free:

Both Alison and Chrissi have been long time users of LEGO Serious Play methodology in academic setting and they also have been prolific writers describing their experience in this field extensively. Let me just point out three interesting sources that I have looked at.

The most interesting has been the book The Power of Play in Higher Education – Creativity in Tertiary Learning, which was a serious endeavour on 359 pages. It had 39 different articles ranging from using tabletop games, playful writing and poetry, theatrical games. There are 3 articles that also focus on the use of LEGO and LEGO Serious Play methodology:

• Our Learning Journey with LEGO® by James, Alison (et al.) – Pages 239-242
• Using LEGO® to Explore ‘Professional Love’ as an Element of Youth Work Practice—Opportunities and Obstacles by Purcell, Martin E. – Pages 243-245
• Creating LEGO® Representations of Theory by Simmons, Nicola – Pages 247-249

which is available via Amazon: The Power of Play in Higher Education: Creativity in Tertiary Learning

Engaging Imagination

Another book that Alison James wrote together with Stephen Brookfield was Engaging Imagination – helping students become creative and reflective thinkers.

Many years ago I wrote this blog post to summarize her earlier work: Lego Serious Play: a Three-Dimensional Approach to Learning Development.

IJMAR issue on LEGO Serious Play

Alison and Chrissi also have published an IJMAR special issue on LEGO Serious Play: https://seriousplaypro.com/2019/01/06/lsp-research-special-issue/ In this release, they have invited a number of scholars to describe their use cases of LEGO Serious Play in research practice.