of popular games, and the lack of interest students show
these games will not catalyze student learning the way a
successful commercial game will. It is comparable to the
interest students would show in a documentary about the
Holocaust versus watching Schindler’s List or reading The
Diary of Anne Frank.
On the other hand, right out of the box most of the
popular commercial games teach some of the soft skills
that predict career and college readiness, such as perseverance. In addition, they are designed to be modified
by users in ways that can immediately bring academic
content to the existing game world. The ability to “mod”
these games allows educators to create puzzles, challenges, and awards and to assess progress in a multitude of
ways with constant feedback to students. Therefore, a relevant skill for teacher preparation is the ability to evaluate
video games and do the simple programming necessary
to add to or modify popular games to teach or reinforce
academic content.
Students Create According to Interests
As the year went on, the students in the Minecraft class
finished reconstructing castles and moved on to building city structures, such as hotels. They even re-created
the floor plan of our middle school. When their eighth
grade language arts class read The Outsiders, the students
replicated in Minecraft the layout of the town where the
action takes place.
During the year, the students branched out and followed their interests. Some students also modified other
game engines that required more advanced programming
skills.
An after-school Minecraft club drew a diverse group of 25
or more students every Wednesday afternoon, and the class
members helped set up and supervise the club activities.
And in the two years since I first discovered Minecraft,
I’ve noticed a promising trend: Minecraft in the classroom
is exploding. Last fall, a Google search for the phrase
minecraft in the classroom produced about a dozen results, most
linking to the same teacher. I did the same search recently,
and it produced more than 64,000 hits.
Computer gaming presents a challenge and opportunity
for educators. Our experiment with Minecraft suggests that
gaming is easily leveraged to improve learning. If you don’t
believe me, listen to former student Seth Lanz:
What I liked about Minecraft the most was the build-
ing. You could look up pictures of historical places and
re-create that architecture and let your mind run wild,
really. I feel like that was a nice part about the class be-
cause I could take places I was learning about in social
studies and build them in my own little virtual world.
Minecraft Meets
the NETS for Students
Minecraft meets several aspects
of the NETS•S, including:
1. Creativity and Innovation
a. Create original
works as a means
of personal or
group expression
Minecraft is a 3D
blank palate that allows
for hundreds of students to collaborate.
c. Use models or simulations to explore
complex systems and issues.
Minecraft allows students to design, construct,
and virtually investigate complex 3D structures
that have static and dynamic elements.
These structures can include a wide variety
of programmable elements built from simple
circuits and switches.
2. Communication and Collaboration
d. Contribute to project teams...
Minecraft is fundamentally a multiplayer
collaborative environment that requires
teamwork to build persistent and meaningful
structures.
3. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving,
and Decision Making
b. Plan and manage activities to develop a solution...
In the Monroe Middle School course,
students were asked:
“How can we use Minecraft to help our educators
teach ancient and medieval architecture in a more
immersive way?”
As a group, they came up with a solution.
