Our team has been quite busy with several high-priority projects around a new LMS and academic calendar—all due in July. So, when former team member Dave Zokvic (see Model eLearning contributions) offered to write a guest post for Model eLearning, I jumped on the chance to work with him once more.
When I was a kid, I loved Lego. Whether assembling a complex set like the space shuttle or scrounging through garage sales for tubs of tiny plastic bricks, there’s something just satisfying about snapping blocks together and transforming imagination into reality. Well into adulthood, my mother would still buy me small Lego sets each Christmas. Eventually, the tradition died out, and my bricks sat gathering dust in the basement.
Last Christmas, I rediscovered my love of Lego when my nephew received a set. As I was regaled with a story of how much fun he was having with it, I said to myself “Wait a minute, why should he get to have all the fun!?” So, because I’m an adult, I went and bought some Lego.
And some more Lego.
And more.
A bonsai tree Lego set led to a recreation of a famous painting. Then it was a replica of the Saturn V rocket. Then a (mostly) working typewriter. At this point, I probably should slow down. But as I assembled these sets, a link between Lego and my instructional design practice took shape in my mind. When Jessica recently asked if I could contribute a blog post, I was torn between topics—AI and Lego. (My apologies to all of you who wanted something topical). So, let’s talk about some areas of learning design Lego does exceptionally well (and what we can learn from it as designers), and then a few areas where they can improve (and how we can avoid these pitfalls ourselves).
What Lego Does Well
Universal Instructions
The most obvious example is the graphical instructions themselves. By making them language independent, Lego makes their product usable to as wide an audience as possible. A person in the US can use the same instructions as a person in Denmark. Plus, when you work in a visual medium—visual instructions make a lot of sense.
Lesson: Make designs as universal as possible by focusing on the best way to communicate the information.
Scaffolding
Lego’s universal instructions are presented to the builder in small, incremental steps. Particularly challenging stages of a build are further broken up into “sub-assemblies” later mashed together. Most steps in the instructions are between 3-7 individual bricks—large enough to feel progress, but small enough to be held in working memory.
Lesson: Chuck your content it way that allows the learner to make regular, incremental progress towards larger concepts.
Expectations
When you buy a Lego set off the shelf, you know the exact number of pieces in the box. You know what the end product will be. Browsing the instructions gives you a sense of the broad strokes of the build. If there’s a special tool included in the box, Lego shows exactly how to use it.
Obviously, this clarity of purpose isn’t always possible in the classroom with varied learners and individual goals, but we should still try to at least let our learners know where they’re aiming. Be as transparent as you can. What are some pieces of helpful information you could provide to your learners that you aren’t already?
Lesson: Prepare your learners for what they can expect. Don’t assume they know the context of your learning environment just because you do.
What Lego Can Do Better
Accessibility
Some Lego pieces are very close in color. When I recently put together a space-themed set and tried to distinguish between the incremental shades of gray in less-than-ideal lighting, I wished for brighter lights and better eyes. Similarly, some builds can be challenging for people with dexterity issues.
It’s better than it used to be—I thankfully no longer must destroy my teeth to disassemble 1×1 plates thanks to the brick separator tool. Newer sets often include 3D instructions in an app, so you can spin the model around from a different perspective, but there’s still room to grow here.
Lesson: Design for the outliers. Consider from the beginning how someone of different ability levels might interact with your design, and how you can remove barriers for them.
Cost
There’s no getting around it—Lego is EXPENSIVE. The typical cost for a set is around $0.10 per brick, which means even a modest set of 1,000 pieces carries a hundred-dollar price tag to it. Now, you can find smaller, less expensive sets out there, but often they sacrifice detail or variety to meet the price point. Then, you need to buy shelves to display the models. Storage to keep ones you no longer want to display. And don’t even get me started on Bricklink—where you can use software to design your own models and buy the bricks from 3rdparty sellers.
Lesson: Consider the entire spectrum of costs for your learning experience and how you can make it available at as low cost as possible.
Inflexibility
When I was a kid, I remember almost every Lego set would have multiple sets of instructions that would allow you to customize the build in some way—or in extreme cases—let you build something else entirely with the pieces in the box. Maybe it’s just my limited adult Lego experience, but the sets seem much more rigid these days. You get these pieces, in this order, to assemble this thing. No deviation allowed.
While this attention to detail is great for setting expectations (see above), it makes Lego less of an imaginative experience and more of a procedural one. A little bit of added flexibility just to get the mind turning on what else is possible can go a long way towards self-directed creation.
Lesson: Give your learners some flexibility to explore what interests them, and they’re likely to much more engaged in the topic.
When I submitted the outline for this post to my editor, I had a blank spot for my conclusion. I wasn’t sure how to wrap up a piece about Lego and instructional design. Turns out, it’s pretty simple: Lego can be playful and remind us of our childhood, and so can learning. Don’t design the fun out of it.
Dave is an Instructional Designer at Kalamazoo Valley Community College. When not thinking about narrative and game-based learning design, he can usually be found reading, eating sushi, or enjoying a mid-afternoon walk.
Model eLearning 
great piece Dave! I love the lego analogy! “Don’t design the fun out of it” will be my new phease!