Creation. That's Minecraft in a nutshell. If our schools are pushing for creative outlets of learning for our students, then the perfect tool is sitting right in front of our naive, adult faces.
The answer is Minecraft.
I dabbled a bit with Minecraft at the end of last year, and I was blown away by the engagement of my students. I knew I would have to take full advantage of incorporating it into my curriculum the following year. I spent time over winter break developing a unit that incorporates learning "exploration" centers for ancient civilizations. My goal was to have students engaged in various content about a specific ancient civilization, then replicate what they learned every Friday during our time in the computer lab playing Minecraft. Below is a sample screenshot of my centers each week:
My goal is to provide learning activities that appeal to all learners. I always include a close read lesson on Mondays, then I provide two literacy centers (primary source/secondary source) during the exploration centers. The geography center usually enforces basic geography skills specific to the current civilization, and the video station also includes online discussion boards using reflection questions from the video. Lastly, the culture activity is usually hands-on or STEM related. For example, students had to build/analyze the invention of each stage of the wheel like the Mesopotamians.
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| Building & Analyzing the Invention of the Wheel with Tinker Toys |
At the end of each "exploration" day, students add to our "Wonder Wall". The "Wonder Wall" is where students record questions or curiosities about what they learned as a method of reflection and self-directed learning. I began to see some great "wonders" that I allowed students to spend one of our whole-group Monday lessons exploring these further. Many of these answers were then added to their creations in Minecraft later that week.
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| Adding to our "Wonder Wall" |
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| ePortfolio entry on "Wonders" |
Then comes Friday. Friday is the our "assessment" day, yet it looks a lot different than the typical paper and pencil test that I have usually given in past years during this same unit. Now our "test days" looks like this:
I was blown away. I never knew the Ziggurat of Ur was decorated with blue glazed bricks until I noticed many students adding it to their Minecraft replica of Mesopotamia. I started asking why, and they told me they read it during their center explorations. Wow. I have been teaching the "canned curriculum" content because it's what I always have done. When I let students explore on their own (with some facilitation), they started to teach me things. Minecraft has been a great motivating factor for students to explore these civilization further than they would ever have in the past when we simply used traditional resources.
Since I was so impressed with what my students were creating, I felt they needed to share it with the world. We slowly began to add in ePortfolios to reflect. These ePortfolios have incorporated 21st century learning skills as well as been an alternative assessment for me to judge mastery of content. Students access my Weebly webpage, upload screenshots, and answer various reflection questions.
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| ePortfolio Mesopotamia Entry |
Please follow our (in-progress) ePortfolios and leave us comments!
After using Minecraft for the past month, I know I will not go back to how I used to teach ancient civilizations. I have seen engagement increase 100%. I have seen students read as historians. I have witnessed typically uninterested students build exact replicas of ancient structures. I have heard students collaborate using vocabulary words that were never directly taught. My students may not take a test after each civilization, and some may know more about hieroglyphics than the next, but I am witnessing self-directed, motivated learning on a daily basis.
Bottom line. Try it. You will not be disappointed.
