Gamification in education is one of the hot topics as it is ripe with the options of increased learning and engagement of the students. There are various suitable resources available over the Internet that helps teachers to adopt gamification in learning; Minecraft is one of them.
Minecraft is a very creative and flexible resource that is well suited to every classroom.
What is Minecraft?
Minecraft is a video game community which was first started in 2009 and attracted gamers of all age group. Minecraft offers fully customizable and flexible gaming experience to all its users.
At Minecraft, you can do whatever you wish, from building structures or cities to killing monsters with powerful armor and weapons. With large number of mods available on Minecraft, users can play exactly what they desire for.
With so many options available at Minecraft, teachers have been using Minecraft as a learning tool in the classroom as well as for overall curriculum. One of the benefits of using Minecraft in the classes is that a number of students from different ages and grades are already acquainted with its basic mechanics.
How to Use Minecraft in the Classroom?
Since game-based learning is gaining popularity in the education industry, teachers are now realizing the importance of Minecraft, and its potential in teaching students various subjects in the classroom.
The improved version of Minecraft used for education purpose is called MinecraftEdu. Teachers can buy this version at discounted rate that is particularly custom-made for classroom purpose. MinecraftEdu has various features into it that supports various classroom activities and tasks and teacher-focused slabs.
Teachers can use video game to teach students various subjects like technology, math, history, science, and literature. Not just this, in fact history teachers are also utilizing Minecraft’s to reconstruct ancient civilizations and culture to help their students to learn and explore history.
Why Use Minecraft to Teach Students?
Today, a lot of educators are including Minecraft in their lesson plans as it the best way to learn with fun, though, one has to use educational skills in Minecraft. Students enjoy a lot and more importantly they get the chance to build skills with fun.
Generally, teachers tailor their lessons as per the game. But with Minecraft, they can change the game as per their curriculum. They can download mods and help students to learn various subjects by playing games. Teachers can set the parameters for their students with dissimilar game modes. Minecraft offers endless possibilities for teaching students with fun.
Examples
Jennifer Bond- a third grade educator has used Minecraft with her students. She and her students create scaled models or replica of bedrooms. There are a lot of mods on Minercraft that help students to practice everything such as science and technology.
At New Los Angeles Charter School, Minecraft helped seventh grade students to found their own civilizations. Students of New Los Angeles Charter School also showcased leadership and cooperation quality and learned a lot about civilizations by playing Minecraft game.
A Special Education teacher in Denmark, André Chercka, utilized Minecraft to teach English. With the help of Minecraft, students can play and speak English together. Since then, he has combined various subjects in Minecraft lessons. He helped his students to learn coding with Minecraft mod Computercraft.
In fact, Scientific American declared “…“not only is Minecraft immersive and creative, but it is an excellent platform for making almost any subject area more engaging.”
So what are you waiting for, try Minecraft today in your classroom.
