The LEGO Foundation has commissioned Creativity, Culture and Education (CCE the international foundation for creative learning) to carry out a pilot study of its Creativity Kit in 10 schools in England and 10 schools in Denmark during late 2019.

The LEGO Foundation is a Danish Corporate Foundation that aims to build a future in which learning through play empowers children to become creative, engaged, lifelong learners.

Creativity is seen as the iterative process of connecting, exploring, and transforming the world in both new and meaningful ways. As part of this vision, the LEGO Foundation worked with 13 leading creativity researchers (including CCE) to develop a hands-on kit, which uses LEGO bricks to support educators who want to incorporate creativity into their classrooms.

This project follows work carried out during 2018, where the LEGO Foundation worked with educators, researchers, and policy makers, and collaborated and tested a prototype kit with teachers in classrooms. From these experiences, they believe the kit can be used as a tool for designing, troubleshooting, and reflecting on creative learning experiences; it can also be used to get real-time feedback from students on their creative experiences in the classroom, as well as their input on what creative learning experiences they desire.

The project, managed by CCE, will see 10 schools in the UK and 10 schools in Denmark taking part in a pilot study which will consider how engagement with the kit affects teachers’ perceptions and understanding of creativity, investigate and capture teacher opinions and consider how engagement with the kit improves pupils’ understanding and language in relation to creativity, including their ability to self-reflect on progression in the development of creativity skills and their sense of agency in the learning process.

Di Fisher-Naylor, CCE’s Director of Programmes said: “We are delighted to be working with the LEGO Foundation in piloting in schools in Denmark and England, on the new ‘Creativity Explorer Kit’ they have developed.  A strong reflective practice is essential if we are to place creativity at the heart of learning in schools and we very much welcome the Foundation’s initiative in developing a new instrument to support creative reflection in the classroom.”

New LEGO Foundation report: Creating Creators

LEGO Foundation has recently launched a fascinating report on creativity in education systems. Convening seven influential perspectives (including enabler, assessor, academia, government, teacher and learner) from across the skills / education / creativity spectrum, the report aims to enhance and inform the debate on how education systems can reform to better equip learners with creativity skills.

”Creating Creators – How can we enhance creativity in education systems?” includes contributions from Andreas Schleicher (PISA / OECD), South Africa’s Minister for Basic Education, MIT’s Mitch Resnick and the Varkey Foundation’s 2018 Teacher of the Year. Please check out this link for access to the report and video interviews from the contributors.