In this study, we present an interdisciplinary work in the form of the First Lego League (FLL) and how this way of working aligns with changes in the Norwegian Curriculum (LK20). Through our research question, "How can an FLL internship contribute to strengthening the student's programming skills and formation of their own teacher identity?” we investigate the experiences teacher-students have after their FLL internship.

First Lego Leauge

First Lego League (FLL) has been organized in Norway since 2002, and every year a new three-part mission is presented; an innovative project, a robot competition, and a technology section. “In FIRST LEGO League, students engage in hands-on STEM experiences, building confidence, growing their knowledge and developing habits of learning. FIRST LEGO League’s three divisions inspire youth to experiment and grow their critical thinking, coding and design skills through hands-on STEM learning and robotics (First Lego Leauge, 2024)”. FLL practice aims to develop teacher-student identity by having students work on a project where students and teachers find their way together.

Programming in school

Norwegian and International governance documents highlight the population’s digital competence. In A New Skills Agenda for Europe, it is stated that almost half of Europe’s inhabitants lack basic digital skills, and both the business community and the individual citizen are encouraged to participate in a digital boost. Competence in programming is explicitly mentioned as one of the skills that both businesses and schools must invest in (European Commission, 2016). In a message to the Parliament of Norway, it says “There is a need to increase the competence of programming in schools” (Meld. St. 27 (2015–2016), 2016). LK20 is also the first curriculum with competence goals in programming and algorithmic thinking (Utdanningsdirektoratet (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training), 2021).”

Teacher-identity

Since educators first and foremost should concentrate on interaction with students (Spurkeland, 2011, p. 293), the internships become important arenas for such meetings, when education is described as a lifelong process where we are shaped through dialogue and in a meeting with ‘the other’ (Hellesnes, 1992). Our perspectives on education are influenced by digital development, and the goal must be to function in the best possible way in the knowledge society and to be able to relate to the technology that is woven into our culture (Erstad, 2010, p. 111).

Children are playful! Playing stimulates children’s development of creativity, imagination, self-confidence, and mastery (UNICEF, 2013). Spurkeland highlights educators’ ability to facilitate and lead teaching situations filled with play and creative expression as an important competence. He states that “creative processes bring people together” because “what we build together brings us together” (Spurkeland, p. 115).

This study aimed to understand how the First Lego League (FLL) practice equipped students for programming and developing their teacher identity. FLL practice is an eight-week program with students participating in 15 days of practice. The data for this study are online student evaluations from 2020-22. The evaluation form aimed to extract students’ experiences around practice where the teacher's role is characterized as a facilitator. We analyzed the student evaluations using qualitative content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). All text with meaningful content from the open questions was analyzed. We used sentences as the analysis unit and included two Likert-scale questions in the results. The categories were developed before and during the analysis work (directed content analysis). We started with a deductive approach, with the category selection initially based on the Education Association’s overview of the most important changes in LK20 (Utdanningsforbundet (Union of Education Norway), 2022). After coding the data material, we got an overview of the main categories and combined them into two main categories: Programming skills and Development of own teacher identity. The analysis units in the main categories were condensed to shorten the text but retain the meaning content (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004).

The findings from this study show that completed FLL practice expands teacher-student's knowledge of classroom management and programming. Although the practice was perceived as demanding, the teacher-student’s unanimous feedback is that FLL practice is something that teacher education must continue with. This gives us reason to believe that the teacher-students perceive that this practice in the third year of study gives them something different than what they have acquired through the practice periods of the previous two years. A value with FLL practice appears to give a valuable experience of exploring together with the students. The teacher-students have also gained experience with entering a teaching sequence without having to have all the answers but daring to search for them together with the children. Furthermore, we see from the feedback that several of the teacher-students experience having gained valuable experience in leading large projects. Several express the joy of experiencing student participation in practice. A weakness of FLL practice may be that the teacher-students to a certain extent have the opportunity to distribute responsibilities among themselves. This can lead to some consciously or unconsciously choosing away what they need most to practice. Although few teacher-students report that they have become very or quite well equipped to work with programming and algorithmic thinking in school, we still believe that FLL practice is a double-edged sword. The teacher-students get an educational journey with classroom management in a very technology-rich teaching sequence, they develop programming skills and they gain experience with how students can get to know and master the technology that surrounds them.

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