Minecraft as an instructional method:

This week we had students from Colquitz Middle School and their teacher come in and talk to us about Minecraft.  The teacher has been finding success using it as an instructional tool in her classes. It’s certainly a concept I have never thought of, so I was intrigued to learn more about it.

I had personally never played the game before this class, and I found it quite overwhelming – I had to make my screen really small because just moving around in the game made me feel super dizzy and disoriented, which I wasn’t expecting. I’m sure it’s something you get used to, as I’ve heard of people who can play it for hours.

I think that to use Minecraft as an instructional tool effectively, you would really have to know your students and be confident that it would work with them. Video games are something that I’ve found people either like or dislike, and it’s hard to change their minds. I feel like in the average group of middle school students you’re going to have some that are really keen on the idea of playing Minecraft, and some that are entirely disinterested. You would also have to really trust that your students are going to stay focused on the content you are trying to teach.

My favourite part of this lecture was seeing how excited the students were about learning with Minecraft. I love hearing kids talk about things they are passionate about, and it is clear that these students really enjoyed learning in this way. It was also clear that they have a great relationship with their teacher, which was also nice to see.

I don’t think Minecraft is an instructional tool that I will ever use (I can’t see how it would fit in the music classroom), but I’m still glad that I got to be a part of this lecture and see how much the kids who are doing it enjoy it. It is also nice to see a modern take on instruction.