Play Brings Openness or Using a Creative Approach to Evaluate an Undergraduate Unit and Move Forward Together
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14297/jpaap.v3i2.141Keywords:
LEGO Serious Play, LEGO, appreciative evaluation, creative module evaluation, higher educationAbstract
Within this reflective practice paper, a LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) intervention will be shared that has been used at a UK higher education institution to evaluate an undergraduate unit during the academic year 2013/14 using a specific tutorial group. Authentic voices and perspectives linked to the LSP experience of the LSP facilitator, the unit tutor and a student linked to the workshop have been included. These have been gathered to provide an insight into the workshop experience and illustrate the value of this approach from three different perspectives for unit evaluation as well as personal and professional development. Within the context of this reflective analysis, LSP enabled opening up, sharing and reflection of the individual and collective student experience and provided a rich insight into the lived student experience. It also had positive side effects for students and the tutor as it helped them get to know each other and strengthen their learning relationship as well as foster community and belonging.
Could play and ‘learning by making’ or constructionism (Papert & Harel, 1991) help students reflect on their learning experience and articulate this using their own metaphors that would be of value for the tutor to gain insight for evaluation and renewal of practice? The authors of this paper have put this to the test and share their reflective analysis, which might be of interest to the wider academic community.References
Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Frick E., Tardini, S., & Cantoni L. (2013). White Paper on LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. A state of the art of its application in Europe. V. 2.0.1. August 2013. Available from http://www.s-play.eu/en/news/70-s-play-white-paper-published
Gauntlett, D. (2007). Creative explorations. New approaches to identities and audiences. Oxon: Routledge.
Gauntlett, D. (2011). Making is connecting. The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web2.0. Cambridge: Polity Press.
James, A. R. (2013). Lego Serious Play: A three-dimensional approach to learning development. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 6(2013). Available from http://www.aldinhe.ac.uk/ojs/index.php?journal=jldhe&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=208&path%5B%5D=154
James, A. R., & Brookfield, S. (2014). Engaging Imagination. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Kristiansen, P., & Rasmussen, R. (2014). Building a better business using the LEGO® Serious Play® Method. Hoboken, Canada: John Wiley & Sons Inc.
Nerantzi, C., & Despard, C. (2014). Lego models to aid reflection. Enhancing the summative assessment experience in the context of Professional Discussions within accredited Academic Development provision. Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice, 2(2), 31–36.
Nerantzi, C., & McCusker, S. (2014, April). A taster of the LEGO® Serious Play® Method for Higher Education. OER14 Building communities of open practice, Newcastle.
Papert, S., & Harel, I. (1991). Situating constructionism. In S. Papert & I. Harel (Eds.), Constructionism (pp. 1–12). New York: Ablex Publishing.
Porter, S. R., Whitcomb, M. E., & Weitzer, W. H. (2004). Multiple surveys of students and survey fatigue. New Directions for Institutional Research, 2004(121), 63–73.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ir.101
Rasmussen, R. (2006). When you build in the world, you build in your mind. Design Management Review, 17(3), 53–63.
doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1948-7169.2006.tb00053.x
The LEGO Group. (2010). Open-source/http://seriousplaypro.com/docs/LSP_Open_Source_Brochure.pdf
Published
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Journal of Perspectives in Applied Academic Practice has made best effort to ensure accuracy of the contents of this journal, however makes no claims to the authenticity and completeness of the articles published. Authors are responsible for ensuring copyright clearance for any images, tables etc which are supplied from an outside source.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.