How can Minecraft be used as an educational tool?

Teaching is a difficult endeavor, but it is even harder to get students’ attention and engagement while teaching. Whether you’re a teacher or a parent, you can’t teach any child without gaining their attention and getting them interested in what you’re teaching. Hence, it would help if you thought of fun and interesting ways to get their attention and also make them interested. One of the ways to do this is by using engaging platforms such as Minecraft. This is something that many kids love and are familiar with. It may sound surprising, but this game can be used as an educational tool. 

Over the years, Minecraft became very big and is one of the most popular games for kids over 10. In 2020, the game recorded an average of 131 million players monthly, putting it in the conversation of one of the bestselling games of all time.  This blocky virtual world game allows players to explore the landscape, create buildings, and battle against mobs. 

How you can use Minecraft in the classroom?

As a classroom teacher, you can take advantage of this game to teach your students several important skills in the 21st century. Fortunately, the game makers also created an educational edition of the game to help teachers, and it has been reported that students that use Minecraft as an educational tool improve in creativity, computational thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration skills. These are some of the most important skills employers look out for in employees before hiring them. 

Another benefit of playing this game in the classroom and using it as an educational tool is that it helps to foster emotional and social learning among the kids. Many jobs now require soft skills, such as time management, communication, self-motivation, and teamwork. These are also skills that students can develop by playing Minecraft. Teachers that use Minecraft as an education tool reported that communication is one of the most learned and improved skills among their students. 

Minecraft also offers numerous other academic benefits for both teachers and students using it for educational purposes.  For instance, to move around the game’s virtual world, students must learn to read and use cardinal direction, which helps improve their real-life map reading skills. The game is also created in a way that involves logical thinking, sequencing, reading, and mathematical reasoning. So, students playing this game will get better and computational thinking and numeracy. This is confirmed by over 70% of teachers using Minecraft as an academic tool. 

Minecraft education edition

This edition was created to educate kids and help them achieve their academic goals. This edition contains some brilliant ideas for using the game as an educational tool. It includes several kits and lessons that you can choose from. Each kit is based on several subjects and has different lessons based on several topics, such as:

• • Energy systems and food production
  • Recycling and sustainability 
  • Geography and historical events
  • Planetary systems and space exploration
  • Art and design
  • Python and coding fundamentals
  • Energy transfer, units of measurements, and forces
  • Language arts and writing
  • Math for all levels

This provides the teacher with everything they need to teach the students on these subjects without the need to buy essay online or seek further inquiries. 

Incorporating Minecraft into your curriculum 

If you’ve just considered using this game as an educational tool, you should start thinking about how to add it to your curriculum. However, before you go ahead, you must be clear about the learning goals. There are several reasons teachers across disciplines may want to use Minecraft as an educational tool. If you choose to use it, you should have your reasons too. What do you want to achieve? Why are you introducing Minecraft? What would it help your students learn? Once you’ve determined this, then you will know how to move ahead with introducing it to your classroom. 

Also, while playing the game, ensure your students are focused on a specific goal as they explore the game world. This focused exploration is how they get to learn the necessary soft skills they should pick up from this game, rather than just moving around and exploring aimlessly. Setting exploration goals can drive your students and helps them grow. 

Lastly, ensure to follow up on your student’s progress. As a teacher, you should already know the strengths and weaknesses of each student. Note them before incorporating the game, and test the kids at intervals to determine their improvements in the area of weakness and how much they improve their strengths. 

Conclusion

There are several benefits to using Minecraft as an educational tool for both students and teachers. Besides improving their skills, they’re more excited and motivated about learning. We’re bound to see more games like Minecraft being introduced into the classroom and used as learning aids to retain students’ attention and help them enjoy learning.