My Journey into the World of Minecraft

I am not a gamer like my husband, but I became interested in Minecraft when it was all I heard about from a group of my students. They had joined the ECA last year for Minecraft and were pretty disappointed when they could not get into the second session.

@colingally and I started talking about how we could integrate Minecraft into one of our G3 PYP UoIs, under the theme, How We Organize Ourselves. The previous year we looked at systems in this unit but failed to bring it all together into a community of students who were collaborative, organized, and creative. Minecraft brought these skills and attitudes to the unit along with a whole lot more.

We just presented our UoI at the 21st Century Learning Conference in Hong Kong. Click here to see our presentation. goo.gl/bOQL5
After reflecting on the unit with my G3 team in our PYP unit planner and sharing our journey at the conference in HK while gaining feedback, I am better able to reflect on my own thoughts regarding the unit and how to improve it for next year.

What worked:

• Students were engaged
• Minecraft was relevant to them as some have played it before
• Minecraft was also challenging to others who have not played it before and it was designed a bit different to what regular players were used to
• The Social Skills of respecting others, resolving conflicts, group decision making, and cooperation were at the heart of this unit. These skills were developed and reflected on throughout the unit.
• The Self Management Skills of organization and time management were also needed and developed during this unit.
• Student who normally did not choose to work together found themselves communicating and working together collaboratively.
• The creativity of the students in the design of their building/system shined
• The positive relationships built in the online learning spaces

What didn’t work:

• More integration and connection to math would be beneficial. A unit on measurement would work with regards to planning the draft of the community on graph paper, focusing on size / scale.
• Continue to reflect on unit, including tuning in stage, learning experiences, and reflections so that the concepts are driving the unit.

I am happy to see more points for ‘what worked’. However, I know that addressing those points for ‘what didn’t work’ is crucial to improving the unit and maximizing the strengths of the unit.

I am excited to see where this Minecraft journey will take me and would love to hear about your journey with Minecraft and any integration into the classroom you can share.

To view more of my student’s work in their Minecraft world, visit our class blog at http://g3ss.weebly.com (student videos)