LEGO EDUCATION IN PRESCHOOL AGE

Abstract

This article aims to present some of the possibilities of using Lego® Education sets in the process of pedagogical interaction in preschool age to achieve the tasks of competency based education. Competency based education is education that involves a “shift” of focus from traditional education, in which the child is a listener, recipient of knowledge, skills and abilities, and the teacher is a translator of knowledge, to creating conditions for mastering a set of competencies that stimulate independence, critical thinking, creativity, problem solving skills, practical training of future active citizens. Adopted in 2008, the European Qualifications Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF) encourages all Member States of the European Union to implement a single concept of key competences in their lifelong learning strategies. The European Qualifications Framework has been updated with the Revised Recommendation of the Council of the European Union on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (22.05.2018). The national normative document of the Republic of Bulgaria, in which the Framework of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning finds real expression, is the Preschool and School Education Act (PSEA). In Art. 77, para. 1, (items 1 9) thereof, defining General Educational Preparation, the nine key competences that must be achieved are specified, namely: competences in the field of the Bulgarian language; skills for communication in foreign languages; mathematical competence and basic competences in the field of natural sciences and technologies; digital competence; learning skills; social and civic competences; initiative and entrepreneurship; cultural competence and skills for expression through creativity; skills for supporting sustainable development and for a healthy lifestyle and sports. The creation of an interactive educational environment, in which the teacher becomes a facilitator, a playmate of children in the process of pedagogical interaction, is one of the main prerequisites for achieving the tasks of competency based education the formation of key competencies in preschool children. This environment offers opportunities for active interaction, provides children with freedom in terms of time, means, options, models of communication with children and adults, as well as the overall rhythm of pedagogical interaction. The emphasis in this article is placed on the use of some constructors from the Lego Education series at individual moments of the daily organization of children in preschool institutions. The main idea is that they successfully implement the functions of project based learning, simultaneously and to varying degrees allowing the formation of all key competencies from the European Reference Framework for Key Competences for Lifelong Learning.