- SPIKE Essential from Lego Education introduces coding and robotics to elementary school students.
- Based on STEAM learning concepts, it helps students develop skills for a computational future.
- While it's designed for schools, parents can also purchase it for extended learning at home.
This month, Lego Education introduced its latest educational product, SPIKE Essential. Part of a learning system from Lego's education division that's designed for primary school students (first to fifth grades), Essential combines creativity with STEAM-based learning concepts — short for science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. And, key parts of STEAM education are coding and robotics, which play big roles in Essential.
"It's a primary school solution that is meant to ignite a student's passion in STEAM learning through playful problem solving and storytelling," said Andrew Sliwinski, head of technology at Lego Education. Sliwinski was also a research scientist at MIT Media Lab, where he was a co-director of the popular programming language, Scratch.
For some STEAM educators, Essential is the teaching solution they've been looking for their students, said Dr. Anne Zahn, the director of Education and Innovation Research Grant at Waukegan Public School in Illinois.
"Having a product that goes from first to fifth grade was perfect for us," Zahn said, adding that the product is also suitable for extended learning at home. "It has a lot of resources beyond the classroom, something parents could use."
In addition to playing with a set, we spoke with Sliwinski on how the product was developed and with Zahn on how her school district uses Lego Education products.
Designed to be accessible
Built off the SPIKE Prime set that was introduced in January 2020 for secondary (middle school) students, Essential shares a similar philosophy of "learning through play." In fact, both Prime and Essential use the same app (used for coding and lessons) and online resource portal for educators, and can share parts. But because Essential is introducing STEAM to students as young as first grade, it's been made simpler. That means using Lego bricks that are easier to build and icon-based coding blocks rather than text-based instructions.
"Younger students aren't always comfortable with literacy yet, so they have a way of accessing all this functionality" until they can handle text-based coding, Sliwinski said. "We limit the programming palette to just the coding blocks for when you get started, and as you move forward we introduce additional coding concepts so that they can take their projects to the next level." It's also a way for parents to familiarize themselves with coding and STEAM concepts.
Unlike Prime, which uses Lego's Technic bricks, Essential uses the more familiar bricks found in most of Lego's toys, and projects are built on Lego plates, which Silwinski says lends to easier building. Any child who already plays with Lego will feel at home, and as their creativity grows, they can expand on their builds with other Lego bricks.
"Everything we do is easy to get started with, but we also think about how far a kid can push it," Sliwinski said. "Lego is multiplicative: For every brick you add, especially when you get into motors and lights, it lets kids take things to the next level very quickly,"
Introducing storytelling and Minifigures
SPIKE Essential also incorporates a storytelling component that revolves around four Lego Minifigures, each with their own backstory and traits — one is shorter than the others, while another uses a wheelchair.
"We treat them as characters so kids create that connection to them, and that's where storytelling comes in," Silwinski said. "We spent a lot of time picking their names, hair, and body language to represent many types of diversity. We tried to make it as inclusive as possible, to bring as many kids into this type of learning.
Each lesson begins with a relatable story starring the Minifigs, and the student has to help them solve a problem by first building a set and then code a set of instructions to activate it. Not only does it bring imagination to life, the activity covers all the pillars of STEAM, from engineering and arts to technology and maths.
Essential creations are powered by a Hub, which is attached to motors and sensors. After a set is constructed, the code is sent to the Hub — by computer or tablet — and tells the Hub what activity to perform. For example, a motor on a vehicle can be set in motion when a certain colored brick is flashed past the sensor, or a Ferris wheel spins for a set number of rotations.
What's included with Lego SPIKE Essential?
SPIKE Essential comes with 449 Lego bricks that are contained in a storage box, which also provides two sorting trays. In addition, there are four Lego Minifigure characters, a Hub, two motors, a sensor, and a light module. The companion app is a free download, and contains five curriculums with seven to eight 45-minute lessons each, based on grade level.
How much does Lego SPIKE Essential cost?
Each set costs $274.95, and it's available on the Lego Education website.
It's play with a purpose
Play is actually a big part of Lego Education's approach to STEAM learning. According to Sliwinski, purposeful play and play-based learning can combine many elements like project-based learning and social and emotional learning. Even traditional classrooms can benefit from this.
"One research showed that students in project-based learning classrooms significantly outperformed students in typical classrooms," Sliwinski said. "Learning through play can close achievement gaps particularly in students that are vulnerable or falling behind.
"Children learn by playing," Zahn said. "Most of the concepts that take a long time to learn, we're teaching them through play — getting them ready to learn and motivating them."
Zahn added that with the pandemic and more students enrolled in remote or hybrid learning environments, people are looking for ways to give students more social and emotional learning.
Why is STEAM education important?
Lego Education's STEAM products are developed by the company's team of in-house education experts as well as collaboration with schools, teachers, and institutions like MIT and Tufts University. Besides SPIKE Essential, products include SPIKE Prime, BricQ Prime, and BricQ Essential.
A simplified premise for STEAM education (and its more common counterpart, STEM) is preparing students for a future that is unknown, but science and technology will be fundamental in preparing them for whatever opportunities await.
"The future is going to be very different and people need to know some basic programming," Zahn said. "Computational thinking is what we're looking for."
Zahn also said that STEAM can help students think at a higher level.
"Through programming, these younger kids are doing middle-school math and they don't realize it," Zahn said.
STEAM also asks students to think outside the box and come up with different concepts, which Sliwinski refers to as solution diversity.
"In most traditional classrooms, there's one right answer," Sliwinski said. "If every kid comes out with the same model or program, we failed to engage them."
"We need to make education more impactful, engaging, and enjoyable for students — to develop their love for learning," Sliwinski added.
Resources for educators
In addition to SPIKE Essential, Lego Education unveiled resources to support teachers. This includes a website that provides free lesson plans and tips, as well as a new professional development program to provide additional free solutions as well as hands-on workshops and coaching for a fee.
Although Lego Education products are designed for students, they're not limited to classrooms. Anyone who facilitates learning can access the same resources.
"While we do a lot of work and testing to make sure these products are successful in classroom, we also recognize that learning happens at home, summer camps, or after-school programs,"
Sliwinski said, adding that Lego prefers to use the term "educator" because these products' lesson plans can be taught by anyone, whether it's a teacher or parent.
