Teaching Maths Using Stop-Motion Animation + LEGO®

Written by Dr Emily Cook

Let’s play a game of word association. If I say “maths” what are the first three words you think of?

I’m going to hazard a guess that most of you didn’t pick anything like “fun” or “creative”.

As a scientist who uses maths and makes a living out of teaching it, I would probably opt for something like “useful” or “important”. I am also aware that “hard” and “boring” are common responses, but there are approaches to learning maths that can bring in a little more humanity and humour and I have started using stop-motion animation with LEGO® to make videos about a range of maths topics.

I rediscovered the joys of LEGO® during lockdown, when building sets required enough concentration to turn my brain off whilst not so much to distract from Netflix.

I discovered stop-motion animation by chance when I saw a video a friend’s kids had made using a free stop-motion app. I had a play with some LEGO® mini-figures, which amused me, so I made a few more silly videos for fun. Then I had to return to the serious business of teaching algebra but I really wanted to keep playing with LEGO®. So I merged the two, making some short clips of teaching algebra using bricks. This proved very popular with students and a whole project developed.

LEGO® is a great material to work with as it is very adaptable using the million different brick types that have appeared since my own childhood. It is familiar to many people and the association with play and fun remove one barrier of fear from approaching a new maths topic.

My first videos involved building models of maths concepts that were too hard for me to draw or describe with arm waving. Manipulatives, such as blocks and counters that students can move around when learning, have long been a part of primary education. But physical objects help visualise concepts in secondary and tertiary maths just as much, and why should primary students be the only ones allowed to have fun while they learn?

A key revelation for me in making the videos was how few maths stories I knew. I could list a dozen scientists (Marie Curie is my favourite) and tell some anecdotes about how they made their discoveries, but I knew very little about the names behind the mathematical equations and processes that I use every day. Who exactly was Pythagoras and did he even come up with the theorem named after him? (Turns out probably not). Perhaps if we can put some of the people and stories back into maths education we can make some more sense of the abstract symbology and bring the subject to life.

My final discovery in this project was how much fun I could have.

The focus in maths is often on getting the right answer, with all the associated anxieties of being “wrong”. This often gives maths a reputation as a serious and potentially boring subject. But why not be a little silly along the way? Using animals and terrible puns makes me laugh, and if I’m enjoying myself then my students pick up on that and it creates a relaxed atmosphere. If the situation is chilled then it is ok to make mistakes, ok to try something that doesn’t work and then just backtrack and try something else, ok to fail at a question without feeling like a failure. If you always end with a joke, you leave the maths class with a smile on your face and a positive association with maths, making it more likely you’ll persist with tricky problems in the future.

So from this project that started as a fun way to pass the time has somehow become my job, my advice is: use physical aids to understand and help visualise maths, explore the history and stories behind the symbols and concepts and worry less about getting the right answer and find the fun.

All videos are available on YouTube

Author Bio

Dr Emily Cook – Senior Lecturer in STEM Education at Swinburne University of Technology.

Emily has a physics degree, trained and worked as a physics teacher, did a PhD in medical physics and yet has found herself teaching in a university maths department through a series of inexplicable events. She has taught primary, secondary and tertiary maths and science and is passionate about hands-on learning and STEM communication.

Emily played with LEGO® as a child and rediscovered her love for it when trying to keep entertained during lockdown.

Learn more about her videos by visiting her YouTube channel

Connect on Twitter: @DrEmilyCook

Visit Emily’s University profile page

Read Emily’s latest research published in the International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology: ‘Stop-motion LEGO^® animations for learning linear algebra’

Image credit

Photo by Xavi Cabrera on Unsplash