WeDo Lego Robotics as a tool for developing children’s 21st century competences

The article presents the potential of Lego WeDo robotics classes for developing children’s 21st century competences. There is a postulate to shape children’s competences in times of dynamic changes. The key competences and their classifi cation are described in the introduction. There is also a description of competences in the fi eld of entrepreneurship, personal, social and learning skills competences as well as digital competences relevant in the context of the studied activities. Lego WeDo 1.0 robotics and programming classes are an opportunity to develop partecipant’s 21st century competences – evaluation of the effectiveness of using sets of bricks has become the purpose of the author’s own research. Research questions related to how creative competences, meta-learning competences and team collaboration competences developed. The research was carried out using the method of pedagogical experiment, technique of one group. The author prepared a schedule including creative exercises. Participant observation was carried out, children’s products were collected and J. P. Guilford’s test was used twice. After analyzing the results, it turned out that children achieved skills in building robots, part of the group was able to create their own instruction designs. Pupils collaborated in pairs, were more eager to construct than to program robots. The children expressed their competences of metalearning while making drawings, were able to make associations by comparing themselves to the machine, and also insight into their own minds. Some participants were aware of the complexity of the learning process. During the semester of classes, the skill of creative thinking developed, with the best results were obtained in the development of fl exibility of thinking. Participation of children in robotics and programming classes infl uenced the development of their competences – Lego WeDo bricks were an effective tool for developing the 21st century competences of participants.