Department 56 Scrooge and Marley Counting House

This is the original counting-house for Scrooge and Marley from A Christmas Carol.

I built this set for children to learn. Kinesthetic learning is so important for children of all ages. I developed a set that will challenge the thinking process of children (and adults) all over the world, all the while, they will learn about a classic Christmas tale written by Charles Dickens.

The set is designed in a way for children to learn how pieces interact with each other... For example, taking a 1 x 1 plate and putting a 1 x 1 tile over it. All of these practices will be part of the vision that Ole had for his company when he first got a brick from the world's fair which gave him the idea to make a brick building company and call it Lego, which by coincidence means "To Build."

Ole's vision has come true through the work and craftsmanship of this reimagination of the classic tale. It also may allow people to read the classic tale who haven't.

A Christmas Story is vital to learning the consequences of one's actions, not being selfish to one another, and being good. Every child should know and understand A Christmas Carol. I believe that being a Lego set will give every child a chance to be a part of the fascinating world of A Christmas Carol and everything that belongs to it.

This iconic building you see is where it all started. Bob Cratchet overworked, Tiny Tim sick, Marley being a partner, Scrooge's transformation, and more.

I worked very hard on this set and plan on updating it with more details, thus bringing it to the perfection it deserves and making it perfect for success in learning.

I really would like to thank Lego for this experience and hope that I make a difference just as Ole did.

I would also like to mention through a number of personal experiences teaching and tutoring biology courses, as well as having an obsession with Legos, I began to ask the question, how can Legos be used in higher education? Current research indicates a shift in student learning styles. Daniel Pink, the author of A Whole New Mind, reminds us that “learning isn’t about memorizing isolated facts. It’s about connecting and manipulating them.” Keeping this in mind I developed a pilot study using college-level students pursuing degrees in Biology, Chemistry, and Biochemistry. This study compared the use of a didactic lecture and an interactive Lego learning activity to teach a biological concept (protein structure and folding). There were some intriguing and unexpected results. The 11 items pre/post-test of students’ comprehension of the information indicated that students in the PowerPoint lecture cohort performed higher than the Lego cohort. Interest levels and confidence levels towards the subject taught increased more in the PowerPoint group than the Lego group. A survey of the students’ learning styles revealed that a majority of the students preferred a multimodal; with a kinesthetic theme reoccurring. The smallest learning style groups were those who solely preferred aural learning or read/write learning. Based on the results and research, creative teaching suggestions were made. Despite the paradoxical results from this small study, additional research must be conducted that measures the long-term retention of the material taught. I think releasing a set like this can really help my results instrumentally.