Key points:

• Harnessing the power of video games can foster a deeper, more meaningful educational experience
• 3 ways educators leverage gamification strategies
• The future of gamification
• For more news on gaming principles, visit eSN’s Teaching & Learning page

Student engagement is vital for any educator throughout the length of a course. The unfortunate reality is that a great teacher only has control of a student’s environment for a short period of time. When a student goes home, they are inundated with many other potentially more engaging activities. In the last few decades, the main attractor for many students have been video games. Video games have become so mainstream over the years that children are just as engaged watching the games on streaming services like Twitch as playing them. The challenge posed to educators is how to gamify coursework that students can play, enjoy, and learn.

The most successful video games have a stratified reward system that rewards players at spaced intervals while the player works towards a goal. The best way to explain this is by looking at a successful game–let’s use World of Warcraft as an example. Players progress through levels toward the end objective while, along the way, completing objectives and earning in-game equipment. At the same time, the player can work and collaborate with other players to defeat more difficult challenges. This is analogous to the education system on a much more condensed time scale. There is an end goal in mind, achieving the maximum level or graduation. This is completed by working through objectives that, in education, are various courses: algebra, history, English, etc. Students earn grades as they complete objectives and even collaborate with classmates on projects. Understanding how the education system is similar to games is vital to redesigning an education-based learning system that would be more engaging for students.

People enjoy video games mainly because the games offer a sense of accomplishment that is often not achievable in the real world. The game gives them strong dopamine rushes that are not as easily achieved in real life. That is not to say that players don’t learn skills like students. For example, some of the best surgeons have impeccable hand-eye coordination and hand dexterity–this same skill is often present in video game enthusiasts. If a developer were to design an educational video game that students would want to play, one of the most important factors would be consistent dopamine hits to the students, i.e. a steady and tangible reward system. Students would want to see that the time put into the game is worth the effort in terms of achievement. Frustration in the classroom by learning a difficult topic is the same in a video game when a player is trying to complete a difficult level. The difference is that the player knows that after completion, there is a reward, but the same is not true when attempting to master the limit definition of a derivative. One of the best examples is the Reading Counts system. Students read books, pass quizzes, and get a certain number of points attributed to their profile.  The number of reading counts points serves as bragging rights among students. This is a tangible reward seen after completing a challenge, reading, and comprehending a novel.

Another difficulty in designing educational games is the need for students to complete cognitive processes like reading and answering questions instead of virtual activities like killing an orc. Reading and answering a question is not usually as engaging as learning how to defeat an enemy. Map out what objective you want the student to master and create the objective in terms of video game mechanics. Let’s continue the limit definition of a derivative as an example. To understand this concept students, need to know what a limit is, the notation of a derivative f’(x) = dy/dx, i.e., the change of y over the change of x, and the meaning of the notation within the limit. More is needed to fully master the topic, but not much more is necessary to apply this concept on practice problems.

In video games, there are various objectives that tend to build to a larger contest. Typically, there will be around five gathering/fetching quests prior to a player being able to attempt a final challenge. These are simple quests that require the player to talk to a non-player character (NPC) who explains some situation; the player then helps the NPC by collecting in-game items and returning them to the NPC for a reward. This serves as a means of improving the player’s status prior to attempting a final challenge. In terms of an educational game, it would be structured so that the NPC provides the necessary snippet of information–say, what a limit is, and the student would run around the virtual environment applying this concept. Rinse and repeat until all the prerequisite information is mastered and the student will be able to attempt the final challenge: an objective that requires the completion of multiple practice problems to complete. At the end of the challenge the student would receive some sort of reward for their accomplishment. Ideally this objective can either be mastered faster this way than in a traditional setting or be more engaging. One potential reward is a badge or another sort of microcredential that the student can use to display their progress towards mastery.

The integration of gaming mechanics into educational content offers a promising avenue to enhance student engagement and learning. The key lies in understanding the compelling elements of video games, such as a stratified reward system, collaborative challenges, and a sense of achievement, and effectively weaving them into educational frameworks. By creating an educational environment that mimics these aspects, educators can provide students with a learning experience that is educational, enjoyable, and rewarding. This approach can help bridge the gap between the engaging world of video games and the educational objectives of the classroom.

The goal is not just to compete with the allure of video games, but to harness their power to foster a deeper, more meaningful educational experience. By carefully designing these educational games to reward cognitive achievements and promote collaborative learning, educators can create a more dynamic and effective learning environment that resonates with the digital generation, ultimately leading to greater student success and development.

Limit definition of a derivative:
https://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/classes/calci/defnofderivative.aspx

Key points:

• Gamification can encourage students to take ownership of their learning
• Game-based learning promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment
• See related article: Digital tools are sticking around–here’s the right way to leverage technology
• For more news on gamification, visit eSN’s Digital Learning page

Students don’t have to be video game fanatics to appreciate a gamified classroom lesson. When teachers turn a lesson or tough-to-teach concept into a motivational gamed or use a fun competition to teach new concepts, students become immersed in their learning and are often more engaged–meaning they’re more likely to retain information.

Still, there’s an art to gamifying a lesson and ensuring that students are actually learning instead of just playing a game for points.

Here’s how educators across the country are using tools–from Minecraft: Education Edition to Roblox and easy-to-access online resources–to gamify their lessons and help students engage with learning.

1. Carrie Rosenberg, a fourth grade teacher at Community Christian School, notes that gamification is one of the biggest education trends right now. According to ISTE, “gamification is about transforming the classroom environment and regular activities into a game.” Many students want more than just good grades from school–they want something physical or immediate. Rosenberg uses Gimkit, Kahoot!, and Prodigy to gamify her instruction and motivate students. Learn more about her instructional strategies.

2. Games are part of many people’s lives–so why not use them to benefit students when teaching? Abigail Beran, a fifth grade teacher enrolled in a masters program in education technology, knows that her students are more likely to engage in an educational activity when it is gamified–and that they’re even more likely to do so when the activity is gamified with technology. There are a variety of reading and math apps and websites that cater to gamification, and even provide the opportunity for differentiation. Beran uses tools including Raz Kids, Dreamscapes, Prodigy English, and IXL language arts for English/language arts gamification, and uses Prodigy Math, Math Playground, Pet Bingo, Sushi Monster, and IXL math for gamifying math. Discover how she integrates these gamified tools into her classroom.

3. As an educator for more 27 years and a digital learning specialist (social studies) for the past 7 years in Atlanta Public Schools, Felisa Ford has supported educators across the district and beyond as they purposefully integrate technology in the classroom to promote engagement and 21^st century skill development. While there are many tools and resources available to educators to support their efforts to create dynamic digital learning environments, one of the most engaging is Minecraft Education Edition (M:EE). Popular among students (and teachers!), M:EE is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment. Read about five ways Ford has helped the district’s teachers use M:EE into classroom instruction.

Key points:

• Gamification can help engage students when they might otherwise lose motivation
• Engaged students are 2.5 times more likely to say that they get excellent grades and do well in school
• See related article: MDM solutions and gamification make perfect interactive learning partners

In the past decade, students have been inundated with more and more distractions. The internet provides an infinite amount of said distractions: YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to name a few. While the environment that grows children into students–and eventually young adults–has been changing, the education system has proved less dynamic. There are ways to embrace these changes as a means of benefit to a child’s education instead of a burden.

Engagement is the name of the game here, and educators are losing. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, engaged students are 2.5 times more likely to say that they get excellent grades and do well in school. This is massive, but even more impressive is that they are 4.5 times more likely to be hopeful about the future than their actively disengaged peers. Students who are happy to come to school and who see it as an opportunity are bound to feel more self-agency and to be better prepared for their post-educational lives.

Gone are the days of teachers lecturing in front of students who are taking furious notes. Students can be too easily distracted to hang on most instructors’ every word. The more you treat education as a game, the more likely students are to pay attention and be engaged in class.

Many of the best educators use review tools like Kahoot, and Jeopardy! This allowed teachers to complete a module of lecture-based learning, generally a week of class, and imprint the knowledge into long-term memory via these tools. This leads to many downstream effects: better grades, superior retention, and interest in further education.

Gamification is one of the best ways to review previous coursework throughout the semester. In advanced placement (AP) courses, the end goal is to pass the placement test at the end of the year, but there is a lot of information on those exams. For example, the AP US History exam covers nine time periods of relatively dense information. Gamifying these materials with fun and engaging weekly review sessions is a great way to engage students.

Educators already use this concept with Reading Counts (RC) quizzes in elementary and middle schools. Nearly every school seems to have some sort of RC point-associated pizza party to incentivize individual reading. While this is a great way to motivate students, offering a pizza party once a semester is not a perfect model by any stretch of the imagination. Accruing points based on effort in learning is the basis for most grade point systems. However, as grade inflation continues, students seem to care less that they are not getting an A in the class, because it doesn’t mean as much. What does matter is having more RC points than your classmates or being on the winning Jeopardy! team on Friday’s review.

In our technologically rich culture, we have already found ways to gamify normally lackluster activities. Exercise is an obvious example. Apps like Strava allow you to share your runs with friends and actively see what other people are doing. The Apple Fitness app counts your steps and positively reinforces your activity by automatically setting goals. Even PokemonGo had massive impacts on normally immobile people to get up and move around. All these apps make exercise feel like a game. In drawing from these concepts, educators should determine ways to restructure instruction and to turn the classroom (and professional development) into a place for gamification, positive reinforcement, and rewards.

Even some of the basic facets of gaming used in badging programs and similar programs can help engage students and teachers to learn more. Artificial intelligence (AI) offers the potential to further enhance the gamification of K-12 education by creating immersive learning experiences. Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies powered by AI can transport students to virtual worlds where they can explore historical landmarks, conduct scientific experiments, or solve complex math problems in a gamified environment. These interactive simulations provide hands-on learning opportunities that promote active participation and deeper understanding of the subject matter. AI algorithms can analyze student interactions within these virtual environments, offering real-time feedback and guidance, thereby facilitating learning and encouraging self-reflection. Using both traditional and AI-supported gamification, teaching and learning can become a captivating and effective journey of discovery for students.

Gamification may have the potential to provide the level of engagement that Thomas Edison projected in the 1920s with the advent of instructional film. As educators have access to more robust technology, the instructor still needs to figure out how to best use it to engage each student.

Related:
Is it time to fire up gaming consoles in classrooms?
How to use Minecraft Education in your classroom

Key points:

• Gamification can encourage students to take ownership of their learning
• Discover the different gamified resources one teacher uses to engage students
• See related article: Are you teaching with Minecraft and Roblox? You should be

Gamification is one of the biggest in education trends right now in education. According to ISTE, “Gamification is about transforming the classroom environment and regular activities into a game” (Haiken, 2021). Many students want more than just good grades from school–they want something physical or immediate. “Gamification empowers students with the ultimate in choices when setting goals for what badges and achievements they want to complete, which leads to learners building skills for self-reliance and self-control” (McCarthy, 2021).

Embracing gamification in the classroom will lead to students taking responsibility for their learning while also enjoying their time in class.

Here are three examples of gamification I use in my fourth grade classroom:

1. Gimkit: My students absolutely adore this game. They are constantly asking if there is a kit they can play. Gimkit is a game that can be played live or assigned to students as homework. Teachers create kits with questions for their students. There are multiple ways to play with those questions.

There are 2D modes, where the students have characters called gims, and they play
collaborative games such as Tag or Capture the Flag. There are also non collaborative games like Farm Chain and Fishtopia. The questions in each kit are used to help the students get energy to be able to complete the tasks at hand. If they do not answer questions correctly, they will run out of energy and won’t be able to move.

Apart from the 2D modes, there are also game show modes where the students have to answer as many questions correctly as they can and to earn points towards the tasks in each specific mode.

Gimkit is a super fun way to have your students learn through repetition and competition. I use them in my classroom as homework so the students can play and complete tasks at home, as well as in school to review concepts or questions on an upcoming test.

2. Kahoot!: The ever-loved Kahoot has become a fan favorite way to gamification in classrooms all the way from elementary through higher education. Much like Gimkit, teachers create sets of questions in Kahoot! and display them to their students in a game show format.

Students get points for answering questions correctly, and can earn extra points based on how quickly they answer. Classmates are competing against each other to see who can get the most points by the end of the set of questions.

One of my favorite features of Kahoot! is the discover page. On this part of the website, sets of questions are already made and ready to be used by anyone. Some sets are made by other teachers, while others are from companies like Disney, National Geographic, and NASA.

These sets come in handy in a pinch and it can be so nice as a busy teacher to not have to take the time to create a whole set of questions yourself–especially if someone has already done it!

3. Prodigy: Last, but certainly not least, Prodigy is one of the biggest up and coming ways to use gamification in a classroom. Prodigy is a website that is split up into two different game modes. According to the website, “In Prodigy Math, students are wizards engaged in epic math battles. In Prodigy English, students collect and harvest resources to build their very own world” (Prodigy). Students are able to play with their classmates when they are at school and learn from each other as well as through the game.

One of the best things about Prodigy for teachers is that they have questions that align to curriculum standards from grades 1 through 8. There is no need to come up with questions for the students, because they are already provided. Teachers can assign questions from specific standards and monitor students’ progress on each question.

Parents can also access to Prodigy and are able to purchase the game for their
students at home. This is a wonderful way for parents to be engaged with their student’s learning and it’s a great opportunity for children to learn at home.

Gamification is a huge part of education in today’s world. According to the Smithsonian Science Education Center, “Using gamification to aid in cognitive development will allow an increase in the activity of the regions of the brain to allow for adequate development” (Smithsonian, 2016). There are so many different ways to use gamification in the classroom. I have given just a few of my students’ and my own favorites that are frequently used in my classroom.

References:

5 benefits of Gamification. Smithsonian Science Education Center. (2016, March 10).
https://ssec.si.edu/stemvisions-blog/5-benefits-gamification

Haiken, M. (2021, February 12). 5 ways to gamify your classroom. ISTE.
https://www.iste.org/explore/In-the-classroom/5-ways-to-gamify-your-classroom

McCarthy, J. (2021, December 13). Using Gamification to Ignite Student Learning. Edutopia.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/using-gamification-ignite-student-learning/

Prodigy. (2023). Free math learning game for kids. Free Math Learning Game for Kids | Prodigy Education. https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/

Related:
How to use Minecraft Education in your classroom
MDM solutions and gamification make perfect interactive learning partners

Key points:

• Immersive learning experiences are highly engaging and give students another way to grasp key STEM concepts
• Roblox and Project Lead The Way are offering 3D immersive learning with a new STEM experience
• See related article: Are you teaching with Roblox? You should be

Immersive learning experiences are all the rage, and for good reason—they engage students and help make challenging concepts–particularly STEM concepts–a bit easier to learn thanks to they way they are presented.

Pathogen Patrol, a new 3D immersive learning experience from Project Lead The Way, brings important STEM learning content to life. These learning experiences give students another way to learn educational concepts, such as space exploration or different processes in the human body, which are typically challenging to teach with traditional methods.

An added bonus? Pathogen Patrol is available on Roblox.

The experience was developed with support from the Roblox Community Fund, which offers investments, grants, and advances to exceptional education organizations and developers to help them create free, curriculum-based educational experiences on Roblox for immersive and collaborative learning, including for underserved communities. The initiative is part of Roblox Education’s goal to engage 100 million students in high-quality learning on Roblox by 2030. Pathogen Patrol was created by instructional developers at PLTW and brought to life on Roblox through the creative minds at Tipping Point Media. 

In Pathogen Patrol, students and users are transported into the body of a sick patient to help defend their patient against invading pathogens. Students take on the roles of five different white blood cells, discovering each cell’s unique abilities. They collaborate as a team and learn how the cells function together to protect the health of the host. Through fun and collaborative gameplay, students gain a deep and enduring understanding of the human body and its response to infection. Pathogen Patrol aims to spark students’ interest in learning and engage audiences who might not typically identify with STEM.

Pathogen Patrol builds upon PLTW’s Biomedical Science curriculum by integrating medically accurate experiences into immersive environments. Pathogen Patrol will be a key learning experience in the Human Body Systems course within the PLTW Biomedical Sciences pathway starting with the 2023-2024 school year.

Hard-to-measure higher-order thinking skills in learning standards, such as critical thinking, systems thinking, and creativity, increase in the level of deep thinking they demand as students move through grades—”but when we look at the reality of what’s in most curricular instructional materials, we see a tendency towards more of the lower roads of thinking,” said Rebecca Kantar, vice president of education at Roblox.

While Roblox’s education team historically focused on Roblox Studio, it had an opportunity to meet a growing demand for tools and methods to get at deeper learning standards. “That was a dominant call for students to do more of the type of thinking that they have to do as adults, and that representative match of what we’re spending time on in school being similar to what we have to spend time on as adults,” Kantar said.

The gaming concepts inherent to Roblox’s platform come in handy for students as they tackle more challenging learning concepts.

“Our strategy is predicated upon a notion that kids love Roblox and find it engaging. They already want to be there, so if we’re able to delight them with a realization that, [while] what you’re doing in Project Pathogen or in school [isn’t] not always pure fun, it’s challenging in a way that feels rewarding,” Kantar said.

Concepts that are native to gaming—perseverance and social aspects—make for a motivational learning experience.

“What’s important about Roblox is we already have a ready and willing community of young people using the platform who are used to persevering through challenges, particularly with their friends. They’re used to iterating, used to their avatar exploding into 100 pieces and getting right back up and trying again,” Kantar said.

“If we can take advantage of that norm and expectation and translate it to [PLTW’s Project Pathogen] experience, but also capitalize on the fact that they already expect the platform to be social, and a lot of what keeps them there and is fun is that their friends are there too, well now we have this added benefit of motivation to try hard in these experiences because you’re working with your friends, you want to stay engaged, you want to demonstrate their skill,” she added.

“Students today need to be met where they are in their education journey. PLTW sees Roblox as an important platform that offers tools and easy access from anywhere in the world to help achieve this,” said David Greer, executive vice president and chief program officer at PLTW. “Experiential learning through Roblox allows students to learn by doing in a way not possible before. They will gain enduring understandings through repeated gameplay and master complex concepts without even realizing they are learning.”

Material from a press release was used in this report.

Related:
Museum of Science, Boston enters metaverse with “Mission: Mars” Roblox experience

In the era of mobile devices and tablets, interactivity has become the norm for schoolchildren. To facilitate effective teaching and learning, modern schools must equip every classroom with interactive touchscreens and utilize gamification techniques. As these modern education tools require management and security, integrating MDM solutions has become imperative for every organization.

Understanding the Basics of Gamification in Education

Gamification means adding interactive gaming elements to processes such as learning. Everyone loves games, and competition motivates people to perform their best. So, by adding gamification elements during teaching sessions, schools can significantly increase their participation and engagement levels.

In addition, gamification can improve student skills such as active learning, problem-solving, and critical thinking. It also helps students enhance teamwork and collaboration.

Gamification helps students retain acquired knowledge. Gabe Zichermann, CEO of Dopamine, a gamification consulting agency, said people tend to remember their lessons better when taught via gamified methods. In fact, applying gamification to the learning process can increase knowledge retention by up to 40 percent.

Finally, gamification is more fun. Students will find it hard to resist participating when a leaderboard out front announces current individual scores. Or they might find it challenging to compete against fellow students to become the first to finish a task or answer a question correctly via touchscreen. In addition, it can be a rewarding experience to see the entire class cooperating to jointly solve a puzzle.

The Benefits of MDM Solutions for Gamified Learning in Schools

When using touchscreen devices in schools, it pays to have companion MDM solutions to manage, maintain, and secure them. After all, touchscreens represent a significant investment for school districts.

Like other school equipment, the better the care and upkeep, the longer these devices will serve the students. So, investing in a sound and reliable device manager is critical when deploying touchscreens to the entire school district.

Let’s look at the direct benefits of applying MDM solutions to gamified learning:

Better Software Management

With a cloud-based remote device manager, it’s easier to keep all software and system settings updated. Instead of spending money on support calls or field visits, system administrators and IT teams can remotely connect to individual devices to perform over-the-air (OTA) installations, updates, and fixes.

With all the tools and resources available via cloud connection, admins can conveniently schedule updates during after-school hours to minimize downtime. Moreover, ideal MDM solutions will update selected devices or the entire fleet.

Better Security

Combining the functions of a whiteboard, projector, and media player, school touchscreens are interesting pieces of equipment. This can inspire certain students to attempt to break into the touchscreens and modify records or simply vandalize them.

If you invest wisely in your MDM solutions, these issues should be no problem. A reliable device manager will deny connections by users without proper credentials and implement additional security measures. It will also disable or freeze devices after repeated attempts at access. And should thieves remove touchscreens from school premises, geolocation capabilities can locate the devices and disable functions remotely.

Better Access Control

Devices should also have restricted access outside class hours. MDM solutions that feature variable access levels can effectively limit what areas different users can view or modify. For instance, admins can access system settings and perform updates, fixes, and installations but can’t view modules or student data.

Conversely, instructors can view or edit modules and launch learning apps. They can also access and update student records.

Creating Effective Gamified Lesson Plans With MDM Solutions

School district system administrators can centrally manage individual device settings using MDM solutions and create the ideal learning environment.

Making sure each touchscreen device in each classroom remains optimized for the day’s activities means ensuring all system settings and software versions are current and up to date.

Here are some best practices to ensure your gamified lesson plans are more effective:

• Even games get boring if they’re repetitive. So, gamified lessons should include some element of surprise to keep students interested.
• Don’t gamify everything; instead, focus on lessons lacking engagement and motivation.
• Make the rules clear and easy to follow. The simplest games often work best.
• Utilize the four features of gamification—points, timers, badges, and leaderboards—to inspire competition and learning.

Best Interactive Tech Features for Gamification

Robust MDM solutions are just the start. To provide the best learning experience, school touchscreens should come equipped with these ideal modern features:

Multi-Touch Capabilities

Capacitive touchscreens allow multi-touch capabilities. This means the device can recognize simultaneous touches on the surface, which helps in lessons that require collaboration among multiple students. In addition, multi-touch is a must if instructors hold interactive competitions involving the fastest response times between individuals or teams.

Instant Feedback

Instant feedback reinforces learning by keeping students continuously engaged. When the student clicks the right button, and the touchscreen display confirms the right choice, they retain the lesson better. Conversely, pressing the wrong button and receiving instantaneous feedback reinforces the correct process.

Moreover, instant feedback lets students quickly learn the proper sequence of doing things. It also means teachers can provide additional guidance immediately after an action so students can make faster adjustments. This way, lessons are kept fresh. Students also learn to make adjustments during, and not after, the learning process.

Screen Recording

Teachers will need to look back at what happened during school hours to spot areas for improvement. Whether for individual students, the entire classroom, or their methodology, having the means to review the day’s proceedings is vital.

The ability to make screen recordings is an excellent feature to have. It helps teachers and school administrators assess their present methods and develop future improvements.

Gamification Works Best with MDM Solutions

Investing in the future is best when implementing modern solutions to today’s school programs. Interactive touchscreens allow students to actively learn, retain their knowledge, and collaborate with others.

However, school administrations should also invest in MDM solutions to protect their investment and increase their ROI. A device manager ensures your devices remain updated, well-maintained, and secure throughout their lifespans.

Related:
How to use Minecraft Education in your classroom
Is it time to fire up gaming consoles in classrooms?

It’s easier than you think to begin using Minecraft Education in your classroom. During an FETC 2023 session, technology specialist Kristen Brooks from the Cherokee County School District offered an overview of how she engages her students with Minecraft Education.

“When kids use Minecraft in the classroom, they’re so engrossed in what they’re doing that they forget they’re actually learning,” Brooks said. “Students excel in their learning when they’re encouraged to create projects in a style or format they prefer.”

Here are some of her tips to get started and sustain enthusiasm for Minecraft Education:

You do not have to know how to use Minecraft Education to use Minecraft Education in your classroom.

“What if I told you that you don’t need to have the fear factor? When I first started teaching Minecraft to my students, I had no clue what I was doing. The main thing is that you are not required to be the smartest person in your classroom,” Brooks said. The quicker educators accept that, the quicker they become comfortable.

“It’s OK to say, ‘We are ALL learning in this classroom at the same time,’” Brooks added.

Set clear expectations for building in Minecraft Education—with students and parents.

It’s not a game–it’s an instructional tool, must be used with intention, and should be aligned to standards. Brooks goes through learning standards to find something that will lend itself well to building in Minecraft.

Let parents know that students are not playing Minecraft. They are building in Minecraft Education to demonstrate skills and knowledge, Brooks said. Using this terminology is important and helps frame a mentality focused on learning rather than playing.

Start small, with teachers and kids.

The district identified small groups of teachers and invited them to pilot Minecraft Education. It was introduced to principals and administrators with clear expectations: This is not a game, but an instructional tool that must be aligned to standards. It also brought in an outside professional development trainer to help teachers become comfortable with Minecraft Education.

Younger students might need help with the basics at first. Create signs or posters with login information, and have more experienced Minecraft users, or students in older grades, come in to help younger students.

If teachers still feel nervous, they can create a Minecraft Student Ambassadors Program (MSA). This after-school club usually draws in older students who learn more about Minecraft Education so they can help in their classrooms or with younger students.

Educators also have access to specific support areas in Minecraft Education. Once in Minecraft, tap on Play at the top of the screen, and go into View Library to access tutorials for learners of all ages. Topics include science, math, computer science, equity and inclusion, art, esports, and more.

Understand that Minecraft Education can be used across all content areas.

Brooks offered scenarios where Minecraft Education elevates student engagement and brings a lesson to life:

When it comes to literacy, students can create book covers and design book settings. Older students could recreate houses, villages, or other structures that figure prominently in assigned readings. Building structures or settings can also bring social studies lessons to life.

App Smash with Flip. Students read a book, write a book talk script, create the setting in Minecraft, and record themselves walking through the setting while reading the book talk. Students upload their recording into Flip to share with their class.

App Smash with Green Screen: Create a story setting in Minecraft Education, and then create a silent screen recording while walking through setting. Students write a book talk script and use a green screen app to record their book talk.

“I love teaching my kids to create more than they consume, and I love teaching them with tools that will help engage them with learning,” Brooks said.

Related:
How Minecraft and agriculture lead to an esports competition
Are you teaching with Minecraft and Roblox? You should be

Digital learning has become a significant part of education as a result of the pandemic, and schools are continually finding innovative ways to engage and motivate students online. So, with Ofcom revealing six in ten children played games online in 2021, what might the use of video gaming in the classroom look like to engage students with a model they’re already invested in?

Historically, gaming has been associated with recreational activities rather than as a medium used to boost the diversity of learning techniques, despite it being an actual benefit to a child’s literacy, empathy and imagination.

The question is: Does gaming have a viable role to play right now, as digital learning continues to claw its way to the forefront of education, or is it simply an unwelcome distraction?

The impact

From toddler to teenager, the rich and vivid environments of video games can clearly command the attention of children at all ages. However, it’s important to assess the extent to which video game technology can impact childhood education. One thing that is clear is that students enjoy this approach to learning.

Very few games on the commercial market typically have pure educational value, although evidence suggests that important skills may be built or even reinforced by video games. According to commissioned research, 77% (UK) and 81% (US) of parents viewed gaming as having a positive impact on their children’s learning. In addition, in the next five years, 55% (UK) and 60% (US) of parents expect VR and social gaming to be the technology that will shape learning in the future. 

This research shows that video games are expected to have a substantial impact and an increased role in how children will learn in the years to come. However, the practical implications of this, such as a lack of a wireless connection at home or issues surrounding cost, are varied.

From a parent’s perspective, over-exposure to gaming and excessive screen time has been an ongoing concern for many. Likewise, many schools have been slow to introduce play-based learning into traditional classroom-based lesson structures due to fears that it could distract and damage concentration. 

Today, the reality is very different. Educational institutions are becoming far more used to using fit for purpose technology, not only to advance access to learning for all, but also to bring a new dimension to the classroom. Due to the pandemic, remote learning methods were employed at an unprecedented rate and, as such, previously frowned-upon methods are being accepted as general practice. 

Gaming has the potential to become a great educational tool in the right context and environment. Teaching a healthier and more academic approach to video gaming is also important to maximize the opportunities for learning.

Benefits of implementation

Implemented in the correct way, gaming can help to hone and nurture multiple transferable skills, from problem-solving to literacy and technical ability. Schools are well aware that happiness usually results in enhanced academic attainment and most digital gaming platforms – whether console-based gaming or gamified learning experiences – work on tried and tested methods in the form of challenges, rewards, recognition and overall progression. 

From that perspective, gaming could be used to help students think more laterally and with more agility. Of course, different games stimulate responses in alternative ways and it is extremely important that schools are very mindful of this and choose the correct type of games to implement a positive learning experience. Video games have been used in comprehensive programs to help develop social skills in children and adolescents who have severe developmental problems such as autism. Gaming can provide the visual patterns, speed, and storyline that can massively help to enhance children’s basic skills. 

Teachers have had multiple challenges to overcome over the past years. Teachers in both the UK and US cited the ability to meet the individual needs of each child and being overwhelmed by the pandemic as the top two challenges from the pandemic. Following this, they also found engagement with the children as a top four challenge, alongside the protection and safety of children. 

Furthermore, as learning, attendance and behavioral gaps still need to be resolved following the pandemic, gaming could act as a fresh solution to inform educational strategy as schools look to recover back to full health. What’s interesting is that more parents saw gaming as having a specifically positive impact on their children’s education compared to teachers, particularly when it came to creativity, problem solving and engagement rates. Games that embed learning through play, while still reflecting the curriculum, lift the weight off teachers and make it easier for them to mimic the environments children are already familiar with in their personal time.

Millions of students use Roblox and Minecraft to create characters and build entire worlds. As educators search for ways to boost student engagement as they inject real-world relevance into their lessons, finding creative reasons to use these platforms in the classroom becomes their goal. Should you start teaching with Minecraft and Roblox?

“Why Minecraft? Why Roblox? Your students are already on these platforms and they absolutely love them. That doesn’t necessarily make for a great teaching tool right off the bat, but the engagement is there,” said Matthew Kreutter, a product manager for Connected Camps, during an ISTE Live22 session.

A Connected Camps team led session attendees through some brief examples of how they can begin teaching with Minecraft and Roblox with simple coding and building activities.

Meeting students where they are, and teaching them content via a platform they already use, creates direct positive outcomes in building interest in that content. What’s more, Minecraft and Roblox take core ideas from popular games and learning tools and make the possibilities infinite.

“This idea that interest-driven learning directly influences longevity of engagement drives our belief in the power of Minecraft and Roblox as teaching tools,” Kreutter said.

“We are starting, as educators, to gravitate toward platforms that let students explore and create for themselves,” he added, noting that students retain information better this way versus when they are handed information by a teacher.

Connected Camps’ Jaye Thompson, Alexis Albertie, and Amy Pham led attendees through coding experiences using Roblox Studio and Minecraft.

“Coding can be a technical, niche, confusing process. We can get overwhelmed with information really fast. We do know that a lot of kids like Roblox and we know that a lot of kids like to code. So, what if we combine the two?” Thompson asked.

As they proceed through lessons and tasks in Roblox and Minecraft, students learn communication, giving and receiving feedback, problem-solving and trouble-shooting, Thompson said.

Pham outlined a step-by-step rollercoaster build in Minecraft, explaining how students can build a rollercoaster and apply engineering principles as they determine the best design and how to power it. Using Minecraft’s redstone element, students determine how to create and place a power source for their rollercoaster. They can work up to more advanced circuit modeling, as well.

The beauty of games like Roblox and Minecraft, said Albertie, is that students can enter an engaging environment in which they already enjoy playing and they can learn limitless subjects. Teachers can tackle subjects such as cultures, architecture, literature, cell biology, and more.

“Did you get the Wordle today?” What initially began as something Josh Wardle created to serve as a personal daily game has become a household name, with users sharing their Wordle progress on social platforms and urging friends to start playing. And now, teachers are using Wordle, along with other games with viral status, to boost student engagement.

The popular game tasks users with guessing–in six guesses–a five-letter word. When users guess a word, a green square indicates they have guessed a correct letter in its correct spot. A yellow square indicates that the letter is in the word, but the user has put it in the wrong spot. And a gray square indicates that the letter is not in the word.

In a January tweet, teacher Samantha Morra shared how teachers can create their own custom Wordle words of any length–a great way to add longer and more challenging vocabulary or other relevant words and concepts to a lesson.

College professor Michael Spencer explored the way game design and user experience can encourage good teaching practice–namely, that making mistakes is OK, and that students learn as much from their mistakes as they can their successes.

Some educators have suggested using Wordle with younger students to teach them how to navigate and develop keyboarding skills.

Wordle has also invoked passionate debates and lengthy social media discussions among statistics enthusiasts, who argue over the best “first word” to use. Different strategies often enter these conversations–is it better to use all your guesses to guess the correct word, or should you use one (or more) guesses to eliminate letters, purposely not using any letters you know to be in the correct word?

Teachers are getting creative, too–putting students in pairs if devices are limited, laminating large pieces of paper with six rows of five empty squares and using colored dry-erase markers to record classroom guesses, and more.

If you’ve heard of Wordle, you’ve likely heard of nerdle. Nerdle relies on the same color-coded square concept as Wordle, but nerdle players are trying to guess a mathematical calculation.

Created by Richard Mann and his children, more than 1 million people were playing the game within three weeks of its launch, and 70 percent of players are in the U.S.

Many of those users are teachers who are using nerdle in classrooms as morning warm-ups or ways to reinforce newly-taught concepts. As a bonus, the game has great potential to increase student engagement in harder-to-teach classes.

“We have nerdle fever! We now can’t go a day without a nerdle,” said Cyndi Stevens, a grade school mathematics teacher in Reading, PA. “We love collaborating with others, stretching our brains, and sharpening our number sense and problem solving skills. These 4th grade mathematicians are showing positive mathitudes! Our marvelous mathematicians used nerdle to challenge ourselves during Morning Meeting. They did an amazing job…solved the math puzzle on 3rd try!”

“Watching nerdle’s amazing viral growth in the weeks after we launched it back in January was amazing… But as well as the excitement with the sheer number of players, we quickly heard that some teachers had started using nerdle in math lessons. That’s when we realized we could really do something positive with our little game,” Mann said. “Early on, we had some teachers saying, ‘Love the game, but we think we could have some younger kids playing it at school if you could make it a little bit easier,’ which is why we launched both mini nerdle, the first variant, and pro nerdle, where anyone can create their own nerdle challenge.”

Hearing from teachers like Stevens shows Mann that what he and his children created really has an impact.

“But the real highlight of my week? A teacher posting a photo or video showing the whole class playing a game of nerdle, with a big screen up at the front and the whole class cheering when they manage to solve the daily nerdle challenge.”

As an educator for over 27 years and a Digital Learning Specialist (social studies) for the past 7 years in Atlanta Public Schools, I have supported educators across my district and beyond as they purposefully integrate technology in the classroom to promote engagement and 21^st century skill development.

While there are many tools and resources available to educators to support their efforts to create dynamic digital learning environments, one of the newest and most engaging is Minecraft Education Edition (M:EE). Popular among students (and teachers!), M:EE is a game-based learning platform that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment.

Here are five ways that I have helped my district’s teachers use M:EE into classroom instruction that you can use in your teaching practice. Best of all, you don’t even need to be a Minecraft expert to get started!

1. Minecraft can be used to support instruction in any subject area from ELA (English Language Arts), math, science, and social studies to art and SEL and so much more. M:EE has numerous lessons that are readily available to help you extend student learning and to make it more engaging and hands on in a game-based environment. As a former social studies teacher, one lesson series I am extremely excited about is the “Good Trouble Lessons,” which introduces students to Congressman John Lewis, who then escorts students through this world to meet activist such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Malala, Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela, all of whom have gotten into “Good Trouble” standing up for the rights of others. M:EE helps educators bring historical figures and events to life in an engaging way for students. To explore more lessons such as this one or others go to lessons for Minecraft Education Edition.

2. Coding in M:EE is a fantastic way to bring STEM activities into the classroom. In addition to Hour of Code lessons, M:EE also provides computer science resources and lessons that promote coding in various coding languages such as block-coding, JavaScript, and Python. The remarkable thing about these lessons is that coding functions are built into M:EE, so students access coding functions without leaving the platform.

3. M:EE also provides a creative way to utilize formative assessments in the classroom. The service includes built-in assessment tools such as the camera, book and quill, and boards (like chalkboard and poster) that can be used by students as they build and create to document their work. Flipgrid is also a great edtech tool that can be used in M:EE to help students conduct a screen capture of their build and provide a reflection or explanation of their build.

4. M:EE also integrates with your favorite edtech tools. For instance, Discovery Education’s K-12 platform is used extensively in our district and teachers can easily add videos, virtual field trips, or studio boards from Discovery Education via links to the chalkboard in M:EE, which helps students access this content and expand their knowledge as they complete their build. Additionally, students can use this same approach and create a diorama in Minecraft and add supporting content and details through the use of videos and other content from Discovery Education by adding the links to boards.

Discovery Education also recently launched the Minecraft: Education Edition Channel within its K-12 platform. This channel provides educators useful lesson plans as well as ready-to-use activities that support students as they explore Minecraft Worlds and uncover important subject area content and skills. If your district uses M:EE and Discovery Education’s resources, check this content out!

5. Finally, I strongly encourage educators to look to the Minecraft experts (AKA the students) in their building. In Atlanta Public Schools, we created a Minecraft Student Ambassador Program which allowed students to train and support teachers with using M:EE in the classroom. Minecraft Student Ambassadors are a terrific way for educators to bring Minecraft into their classroom. If you would like to learn more about the Minecraft Student Ambassador Program, check out this Learning Pathway in Microsoft Learn.

As you can see, Minecraft EDU is a wonderful way to increase student engagement while also allowing students to express themselves creatively. It also provides educators the opportunity to bring game-based learning into the classroom while allowing students to play, craft, and learn. I encourage all educators to begin using this resource today!

Of all the tools available to educators today, Minecraft is fast becoming one of the most useful. It may seem strange that we say that about a video game, but it is the case. Put aside the popularity of Minecraft, which has sold over 200 million copies, and you find a game that is immensely engaging with today’s youth.

That singular nugget, engagement with youth, has allowed it to become a tool that helps educators teach students things like leadership, organization, physics, agriculture, and more.

One of the reasons why Minecraft and its various versions work so well as educational tools is because it isn’t an artificial game-based education tool. Too often students recognize when game-based educational tools just have a veneer of games layered over the top of educational tools. They see through this right away and therefore don’t become as engaged.

Educating in Minecraft is the opposite of that. By simply adopting an already-popular game and using it as a tool to impart knowledge, students are more engaged and learn more. 

Here’s an example. This spring, NASEF (the nonprofit North America Scholastic Esports Federation), collaborated with the U.S. Department of State for an event called Farmcraft. Students were challenged to grow crops under certain circumstances and competed with each other to see who could grow the most. Minecraft already has agricultural elements to it, and NASEF maximized those with some customizations, which made Farmcraft a seamless educational tool. While not everything carried over from the fantasy world of Minecraft to real-world equivalents of farming, many of the real-world decisions farmers have to make were ported over to the game in this mod.

Throughout the challenge, students learned how to manage farming, including crop selection (organic or genetically engineered crops), fertilization, pest control, water, soil quality, and budgeting. They applied critical thinking to analyze and solve problems.

By introducing real-world problems into the Farmcraft world, we were able to stimulate student discussions in multiple areas around the world of farming and agriculture. One, they started to become more curious about where their food comes from; two, they started working together in groups to talk about how to solve the issues that were thrown at them. Once decisions were made by the students, they could see the effects of their decisions on the crops and would be able to extrapolate real-world equivalents. To enter the competition, they submitted Flipgrid videos with an overview of their farms and their explanations of what they learned about agriculture and how they applied it.

A byproduct is that some of the students will continue to tackle these problems and try to find new solutions to real-world problems as technologies evolve. That continual thinking and engagement around these topics is a promising way to help create tomorrow’s agricultural and biotech scientists, researchers, and problem solvers.

“It was a really great opportunity, especially at this time of social isolation and school closure! The girls learned new skills, as well as online collaboration, to learn more about farming and the environment,” a NASEF Farmcraft Adult Sponsor from Malta said.

Farmcraft and other programs like FarmBeats expose students to the world of farming and agriculture in a unique way that allows them to engage and learn in ways that you won’t find in any textbook or worksheet. On occasion, we will even see some of those solutions or experiments put into practice as sort of citizen science projects.

“I’ve had so much fun watching the videos from all the students as they’ve explored the Farmcraft world and used their creativity to do things I never thought were possible,” said Dr. Adam Cornish, Agricultural Advisor at the U.S. Department of State.

Minecraft can be used for teaching about other sciences, too. Many educators introduce students to physics when they involve students in building Rube Goldberg machines (an overly-complicated device that accomplishes a simple task). When taught in Minecraft, there are a few additional challenges that require students to come up with creative solutions–for example, figuring out how to deal with the lack of wheels in the world of Minecraft when creating a sequence of events.

In the spring, the Rube Goldberg Foundation worked with NASEF to make its annual challenge available in the digital world as well as the traditional. “I really liked the requirements and how they aligned with the physical Rube Goldberg build requirements. I especially liked the emphasis on the science and explanation aspect,” said one teacher with teams competing in the event. 

While the physics in Minecraft aren’t 100 percent accurate, with blocks that hang in the air and everything being square, a large part of the process also revolves around the conversations about how the physics compare. In the case that something doesn’t have an equivalent, like a ball rolling down the hill, students have to find alternate solutions in the world of Minecraft while maintaining the core idea of a ball rolling down a hill when creating their Rube Goldberg machines.

Educators provided numerous tutorials for the contest that showed students different ways they would approach problems or how to create certain aspects of the Rube Goldberg machines, but students weren’t limited to only those solutions. Many came up with creative ways around the problems that educators hadn’t anticipated.

You can view the winning Rube Goldberg Machine projects on Flipgrid.

The fact is, we can use Minecraft to teach just about anything. It is a visual environment and a digital tool. The way you can address a topic using a paper, diorama, or a PowerPoint you can do the same thing with Minecraft. That is how we should be looking at Minecraft and similar games that encourage students to participate.

When students are so deeply engaged in a task that they can’t wait to dive in — and at the same time, they’re learning fundamental skills that are critical for their success — it’s a magical combination.

That’s what a lucky group of 20 students at Horace Mann UCLA Community School are about to experience as they take part in an innovative afterschool program. The students will practice and reflect on 21st century skills such as problem solving, communication, and teamwork as they compete against each other in the popular online video game League of Legends.

A partnership between UCLA and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), Mann is a public school serving students in grades 6-12. As director of the UCLA Community Schools Initiative, Dr. Christine Shen serves as a liaison between the school and the university. Her typical day consists of interacting with others and solving problems, and so she knows firsthand the value of these skills.

“When students move on to college or a career, there’s nothing they’re going to be doing by themselves,” she says. “There are very few careers where they won’t have to work with other people at some point.”

But getting kids to work well together isn’t always easy. “Our students come from home environments that might not be very nurturing,” Shen says, noting that Mann is a very high-poverty school. Many of its students have experienced trauma, and skills such as communicating and controlling their emotions can be challenging for them.

So when Shen heard about WeThink, a service in which students learn and practice those skills within a context that matters to them — competitive gaming, or esports — she immediately saw the program’s potential: “It seemed like something that was perfect for our needs.”

Especially now, when students are still learning remotely because of the pandemic — and K-12 leaders are searching for ways to connect them.

“Students are feeling isolated, and they miss their friends,” Shen says. “We were looking for outlets to engage them outside of academics.”

How it works

Esports is a perfect vehicle for learning important 21st century skills, because many of the attributes that students will need in the workforce correlate with success in gaming, says Dane Berman, director of business development for WeThink.

“These are everyday life skills that students are already using, but they don’t understand how to get better at them,” he says. “That’s where we can help.”

WeThink’s 12-week program focuses on developing 15 discrete skills that are grouped into five different categories: leadership, teamwork, communication, problem solving, and character. For instance, the skills students will be learning under “character” include grit, or the ability to persist in the face of difficult challenges; ownership, or taking responsibility for one’s actions or contributions to a particular outcome; and self-control.

The program begins with a discussion of each of these skills, what it means, and how it applies within gaming and the world at large. Then, students break into teams to play matches. Immediately after each match is over, the students are asked to rate themselves and their teammates on how well they applied these various skills within the game.

This self-reflection process is very powerful, and it has a big effect on how students approach the game the next time they play. “It’s fascinating to see how quickly their behavior changes from one game to the next as they consciously try to apply certain skills,” says WeThink CEO Katrina Salazar.

WeThink use a series of algorithmic models to measure each student’s growth in skills over time, based on their post-game assessments — and the company has seen impressive growth in these skills at other schools. That’s what Shen and others hope to replicate at Mann as well.

Getting started

Bringing the program to Mann posed a little bit of a challenge. Although it’s extremely accessible, the school needed to make sure that students could participate from home during the pandemic.

Mann provides Chromebooks to students, but those devices don’t have the processing power required for gaming. The school solved this challenge by distributing computers from a robotics and STEM education lab at UCLA to participants.

With the question of how students would access the game resolved, the next step was getting the program’s advisor, seventh and eighth grade math teacher Arbin Lubiano, up to speed.

A gamer himself, Lubiano took part in seven hours of professional development to learn how to teach the program’s 15 skills and have students assess themselves and others after game play.

Getting the devices into the hands of students during the pandemic has also been a challenge. The school has been distributing them to participants throughout the month of December, and students have been logging in to learn more about the game itself and play short simulated matches with computer-generated teammates and opponents while they wait for all of their peers to have a device.

When the program officially begins during the first week in January, the 20 participating students will meet online every Wednesday and Friday afternoon after school for two hours at a time. They’ll spend about 45 minutes of that time on lessons and reflection, and the rest playing League of Legends against each other in teams of five that will remain the same for the program’s duration.

As the program is set to begin next month, the students are eager — and so is Lubiano.

“I’m super excited,” he says. “I would like to see this become a mainstream activity, like any other sport within LAUSD.”

Note: This post is the first in a series that will follow the 12-week program and report on its progress.

Revenue for game-based learning and education is projected to reach more than $24 billion by 2024, according to a new market forecast.

Metaari’s 2019-2024 Global Game-based Learning Market study, released by Serious Play Conference, notes that growth in AI game-based learning also is expected to skyrocket, analysts say. The report notes that game-based learning is defined as a knowledge transfer method using “game play” involving some form of competition (against oneself or others) and a reward/penalty system that essentially functions as an assessment method to quantify mastery.

Related content: 4 essential game-based learning questions

Game-based learning, though, is quite different from gamification. In gamification, game-like features such as badges and points are tacked onto traditional education content. Gamified courses are not games, but legacy products with gaming artifacts.

Advances in game-based learning and AI

“AI is a relatively new type of learning game that has just come on the market in the last three years,” says Sam S. Adkins, CEO and chief researcher at Metaari. “…The global growth rate for AI-based learning games is a robust 34.6 percent. That suggests AI revenues will climb to just over $800 million by 2024. The growth rate in the U.S. for AI products is dramatically higher–a breathtaking 56.5 percent.”

The five-year compound annual growth rate for educational games is directly correlated to the ongoing innovations integrated into next-generation educational games, including advances in psychometrics, neuroscience, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and AI.

“Rapid advances in AI technology are profoundly impacting the global game-based learning market,” according to the report. “Extraordinary products are now flooding the market. AI has fundamentally altered the competitive landscape of the serious games industry.”

These AI innovations coincide with the innovative advances in AR, VR, and location-based mixed reality. The innovations are also rooted in advances in child development, psychometrics, neuroscience, behavioral science, cognitive learning, and educational psychology. New findings from these disciplines are now incorporated into cutting-edge learning games for children with special needs.

Advances in technology and science advances also are having a dramatic impact
on the game-based learning industry.

There are eight primary drivers, each one impacting the rest, that are impacting the global educational game market. These catalysts include:
1. AI alters the competitive landscape
2. Mixed reality learning games in high demand across the planet
3. Historic levels of private investment flowing to game-based learning companies across the planet
4. Large scale global distribution agreements between serious game developers and global distributors
5. Intense mergers and acquisitions activity as large companies acquire game-based learning firms validating the market
6. The booming global consumer demand for mobile serious games
7. The rapid uptake of game-based learning in the corporate segments across the globe
8. The availability of inexpensive easy-to-use rapid development tools and the proliferation of online marketplaces selling premade digital 3D models, VR environments, and pre-trained AI models

There are also secondary catalysts spurring game-based learning’s rapid growth, such as the global rollouts of very fast 5G networks and the impending implementation of the Internet of Things. There are also potential secondary
catalysts like blockchain that could impact the industry in the next five
years.

Demand for game-based learning in K-12

Demand for game-based learning at the K-12 is being driven by data showing that games in preschool can accelerate the transfer of both developmental abilities and basic academic skills. Games also have been proven to be quite effective at teaching young children social and emotion skills.

The types of games used at the elementary and secondary levels are very different, the report notes. For example, STEM games are more common in middle school and high school programs.

Several recent trends could greatly accelerate the adoption (and the revenues) of serious games in the academic segments.

Perhaps the most significant catalyst is Microsoft’s entry in the serious games industry when it launched Minecraft: Education Edition in November 2016. In just one year, the company had over 2 million licensed users across the planet. Microsoft continues to add resource packs, making the platform more attractive to the academic segments. By June 2019, it had over 40 million teacher licenses across 115 countries.

There are other major trends impacting the uptake of game-based learning in the global PreK-12 market, as outlined in the report:

• One of the most successful game-based Learning suppliers in the PreK-12 segments across the planet is Norway’s Kahoot!. In January 2019, the company reported that it had surpassed 90 million users. It claims the game is being played by more than half of all US-based PreK-12 students (45 million students). Kahoot! claims to be the fastest growing learning brand in the world with a 75 percent year-over-year growth rate.
• In June 2018, Roblox launched its Roblox Education program, which is a game-based learning platform. The bundle is free for educational institutions and includes lesson plans. Roblox had over 90 million active users by June 2019. In June 2019, the company reported it had “reached more than 650,000 students worldwide through its education initiatives in 2018, and it expects to more than double that number in 2019.”
• Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed is one of the most popular games in the gaming industry. The Assassin’s Creed Origins game was released in late 2017 and sold over 1.5 million copies in the first week. In February 2018, Ubisoft launched the new (non-violent) Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt game that lets users explore the interactive 3D recreation of Ancient Egypt.
• A major trend driving the adoption of VR-based games in the PreK12 segment is the availability of so-called VR classroom kits that include headsets, chargers, routers, carts and most importantly, packaged educational content. This has created a growing distribution channel for development companies that partner with the kit companies.

Minecraft, which hit its 10-year anniversary this year, is currently the second best-selling video game ever—only beat out by Tetris. The game is what’s called a “sandbox,” where players move around freely and use pixelated “blocks” to build whatever they want, from functioning virtual computers to a replica of the entire country of Denmark. Over 100 million people play the game, and estimates suggest that kids under 15 are the biggest demographic.

As with many trends that become massively popular among kids, K–12 educators can’t help but take notice of the game. And yet, Minecraft generally hasn’t gone the way of Tamagotchis and other fads that get banned from school. Instead, ideas abound for integrating Minecraft into the classroom.

Related content: 5 ways to use Minecraft in the classroom

Disruptive Innovation Theory explains how rudimentary products and services take root at the margins of a market, and improve over time to compete in the mainstream market by enabling greater access, affordability, and flexibility. In light of Minecraft’s migration from outside school walls to inside classrooms, could Minecraft disrupt traditional instruction? The answer hinges not only on the game itself, but on how and why educators leverage it to shift instruction.

At the classroom margins: not your standard edtech tool

When Minecraft took off as a popular game in 2011, it racked up players, and also began to gain a reputation as a space where kids were learning together. Parenting experts lauded Minecraft’s subtle ways of helping kids learn about resource management, patience, perseverance, and teamwork. Informal learning communities launched Minecraft summer camps or library-sponsored competitions. Minecraft was emerging as a learning platform that was never designed to compete with edtech—in many ways because its first priority was to appeal to players’ own interests, not to teach them something predetermined by the creators.

By the standards of our formal education system, Minecraft was far from a high-performing learning tool. It fit none of the traditional hallmarks of the education system. It contained no standardized content or assessments. It didn’t offer teachers useful data to inform instruction. Kids could roam free creating everything from random number generators to replicas of the Parthenon, rather than learning fixed content at a fixed pace. Because it featured none of these traditional elements of performance for an education tool, there was no reason to expect it would make its way into classrooms.

The move to the education mainstream: hybrid innovation, or disruption?

Of course, Minecraft has made its way into classrooms, despite never being designed as an edtech tool. From a disruption perspective, the critical question is: how? Is it enabling educators to disrupt conventional methods of teacher-led, “sit and get” instruction? Or is it being used in ways that reinforce those methods?

In the business world, once disruptive innovations are perceived as competitive by incumbent companies, those companies frequently introduce hybrid innovations. A hybrid is a combination of both the new, disruptive technology and the old technology, and represents improvement along traditional metrics of performance (a sustaining innovation relative to the old technology). Hybrids don’t compete on cost or access like pure disruptive innovations because they build on the company’s existing business model. For example, the automobile industry has developed several hybrid cars along its way to transitioning from gasoline-fueled engines to engines with alternative power sources. The leading companies want to offer their customers the virtues of both, so they have developed a sustaining innovation—hybrid cars that use both gasoline and electricity.

There are upsides to hybrid innovations. They can introduce important sustaining improvements on traditional metrics of performance, giving customers the ‘best of both worlds’. However, they can also lead traditional systems to cannibalize new technologies in ways that stymie their transformative potential. Indeed, as Minecraft moves from the margins into the mainstream classroom, it can easily become “school-ified.” Lesson plans abound for 50-minute class periods where students perform prescribed tasks in Minecraft. In one example currently showcased on the Minecraft Education website, a teacher created a model of the school in Minecraft and wrote math exercises on the boards in each virtual classroom. Engaging? Perhaps. Disrupting traditional instructional methods? Not quite.

In other cases, however, teachers are using Minecraft as a vehicle to break away from traditional equations of how learning happens and how it’s demonstrated. Traditionally, a teacher (or tool, like a textbook or software) would transmit information to a student, who would then be expected to learn that information and prove it on a test. But in some classrooms, students use Minecraft as a platform to develop their ideas or demonstrate their learning. For example, some teachers are inviting students to use the game to design for accessibility and inclusion or show their understanding of symbolism in literature. Could these things happen without Minecraft? Certainly. But in the absence of an affordable, easy-to-use, sandbox platform for creative production, the barriers to creation-oriented learning and assessment might well be higher, with greater demands for human capital, materials, and space.

So, could Minecraft disrupt traditional instruction systemically? The answer is, not yet. That’s because so long as traditional modes of assessment dominate, Minecraft will either not appeal, or be force-fit into a traditional paradigm. For educators to harness Minecraft and similar tools as part of creation-oriented instructional models, a new set of assessment strategies and models need to evolve around those tools.

Beyond Minecraft: technology for constructing knowledge

Framing Minecraft within a narrative of disruption is an invitation for K–12 leaders to pay closer attention to technologies that enable and scale instructional models focused on student-driven inquiry and production. In Disrupting Class, we identified online learning as a potentially disruptive force that could drive more student-centered learning in K–12 education. At that time, online courses were quite rudimentary. While they enabled flexibility in time, pace, path, and place of learning, they generally modeled the same kind of transmission of information from teacher to student that governs conventional classrooms.

Today, we see some wider variation in the tools being adopted in classrooms, including more experiential edtech like virtual reality field trips or digital science labs. But does the story of Minecraft signal something different, breaking beyond a relatively narrow set of available actions for students and creating the conditions for open-ended inquiry and exploration? I’ll be on the lookout for learning and assessment tools like these that invite student creativity and initiative, and position students as producers.

[Editor’s note: This post originally appeared online on the Christensen Institute blog, and is reposted here with permission.]

By now, pretty much everyone knows what Minecraft is. If you’re just joining us, however, here’s a summary: Minecraft is a “sandbox” game offering open-ended possibilities for building and creation. Educators love it because it can be used across all subject areas, meaning Minecraft in the classroom is no longer a foreign concept.

All it takes is a Google or Pinterest search to find some pretty cool ways to incorporate Minecraft in the classroom.

You can search Twitter for hashtags such as #MinecraftEDU to see what other educators are doing, you can explore blogs or learning communities, or you can seek out likeminded educators at edtech conferences.

Whatever you do, don’t miss the chance to incorporate Minecraft in the classroom. English teachers can task their students with replicating villages or structures that play in integral role in a novel. History teachers can ask students to create historically-accurate representations of certain time periods. Foreign language teachers can ask students to rely on their vocabulary as they build and label objects within the game.

These are simple examples of Minecraft’s classroom potential, to be sure, but you get the idea.

5 examples of using Minecraft in the classroom

Here are some examples, straight from educators, of how using Minecraft in the classroom can boost engagement and student achievement.

1. Minecraft can inspire students who struggle with creative writing. As one educator observes, Minecraft helped students come up with more ideas for a classroom assignment asking them to write a story about a castle and then build that castle in the game. Students also were more engaged during the process.

2. Minecraft allows for a version of electricity, and users can create circuits, design logic, and create arrays, delays and repeaters. They can transpose computational thinking to build things that work, or build things and use their new vocabulary to explain in their Minecraft world what those things are and how they work. Many teachers are using Minecraft for electrical design and visual design.

3. Surprisingly, Minecraft can help students build SEL skills. Almost all teachers in a survey (97.7 percent) said problem solving is the top SEL skill their students learn from in-school and extracurricular Minecraft participation.

4. Computer science and coding skills are in high demand in today’s workforce, but qualified workers are hard to come by. Students can use their love of Minecraft to learn how to code and build strong programming skills.

5. Minecraft also can help with pre-algebra and geometry for early learners. Young students build things to specifications without using mathematical language, and when students are comfortable with the concepts after seeing them illustrated with Minecraft blocks, educators introduce math vocabulary and formulas or equations.

When I met Grade 5 teacher Mark, he came to me with an exciting idea: He wanted me to work with him to teach creative writing through Minecraft in the classroom. I signed him up as my dissertation student in my Master of Education course, and over the following year we got to work on our project.

Minecraft is a sandbox computer game. It is a game that doesn’t have pre-set linear timelines, missions, or goals for players to follow. I like to think of Minecraft as a digital version of LEGOs. Players use base blocks to build imaginary worlds and characters.

Related content: 7 ways Minecraft can make learning exciting again

In fact, Minecraft is an incredibly versatile game where players can build whatever they like. One student might create a fortress, another might create a model of a fruit bowl. The control is in the hands of the learner.

Did Minecraft in the classroom help our students’ writing tasks?

To test whether Minecraft was helpful for the students’ creative writing, we conducted a simple action research study:

Stage 1: The students write a story about castles.

Stage 2: The students use Minecraft in the classroom to create visualizations of the castles that existed in their stories.

Stage 3: The students write a new story about their castles, incorporating any new knowledge they developed through their gameplay.

Stage 4: We conduct pre-tests and post-tests on the students’ written work.

After playing Minecraft, we believed the students would be more intimate with their castle ideas and therefore more likely to develop descriptive and authoritative texts. In other words, when students develop vivid insights into their topic through gameplay, their subsequent vocabulary, text structure, and sentence structure may come more easily.

So, Mark, myself, and a literacy expert at our university assessed the boys’ initial stories and their new stories on a 7-point scale on the metrics of vocabulary, text structure, and sentence structure.

Our results showed that each student’s grade saw incremental growth–or, in the case of two students, their grade held steady. Overall, students’ scores on our 7-point scale grew an average of 0.66 points, or a 9 percent overall grade increase.

These results, we hasten to say, would need to be replicated on a much larger scale for any claims to statistical relevance to be made.

We also interviewed the students after the project to gather their insights into the benefits of the project. Below are four potential benefits identified by the students for using Minecraft for creative writing.

Benefit 1: Minecraft in the classroom promotes engagement in lessons

Computer games are an intrinsic motivator for many students. The students in the class were drawn to this activity and excited to participate.

While the pre-test and post-test elements of our study were not designed to assess engagement levels, we did sit down with the students to get their take on the study.

It was very clear from our discussions with the students that the students were highly motivated by the project. As one student succinctly put it: “Minecraft made it more interesting.”

Engagement alone is a good rationale for using Minecraft in the classroom. Getting students engaged in the task is, after all, half the battle.

Benefit 2: The game helps students generate creative ideas

The students’ experiences in gameplay helped them to more clearly visualize their castles.

One student, for example, told us: “I had a lot more ideas to write about” after playing Minecraft in the classroom. Another said “I got way more experience of the castle”, while a third quoted: “it’s easier to describe things on Minecraft because I can see them.”

Therefore, we believe the creative elements of digital game-based learning helped the students to improve on their creative writing pieces.

Benefit 3: The game scaffolds thinking

Scaffolding is the art of providing support to students to help them learn. The supports should encourage students to think more deeply about a topic or give them strategies for the completion of a task.

We saw that Minecraft acted as a computer scaffold.

For example, the game provided a platter of suggestions to the students about how to proceed with their castle building project. One student, citing how the game provided suggestions, quoted that the game “made it more interesting and give me more ideas” for building his castle. Another student stated that there were “lots of things [available] and you can describe them all” in the subsequent writing task.

We therefore believe that the game provided the students with an opportunity to expand on their thinking by providing nudges and suggestions about how to proceed.

Benefit 4: Minecraft can promote social learning

Social and observational learning is widely recognized as a powerful approach to education, and this approach can be applied when using Minecraft in the classroom. For example, Minecraft can be played in multiplayer modes where students can watch others’ projects and observe their progress.

Our project unfortunately did not make use of this mode. However, the students were quick to point out to us that they would have loved to have been able to use multiplayer mode to collaborate with, observe and model ideas for their friends.

As one student told us: “if we played with other people we could go and see other people to see how we could improve.”

We therefore would encourage teachers to go a step beyond our project and try out the multiplayer mode to see how students collaborate together, observe one another, and learn from each other’s projects.

Final thoughts

Educators are increasingly seeing computer game-based learning as being of significant benefit to learners. Like physical play, digital play has social and cognitive benefits. Our study highlighted that creative writing could be nurtured through computer gaming. When paired with literacy tasks, creative gameplay on Minecraft can be used for developing expressive and creative written work.

There are, of course, many other avenues that teachers can take in using Minecraft for learning. In fact, the official Minecraft: Education Edition website offers lesson plans for all ages and across varied curriculum topics, from chemistry to history.

We would be excited to see more teachers taking up computer games like Minecraft in their classrooms and experimenting with ways the games can engage learners, encourage creative thinking, scaffold new thinking, and even promote social skills.

An average child today will have played 10,000 hours of video games before the age of 21. If playing games is part of our culture, even part of our identities, then it stands to reason that students can be highly motivated by game-based learning opportunities. So what if we make classrooms the game?

Gamification means using game-design principles such as cooperation, competition, character development, and point scoring in a non-gaming context. In the classroom, it can be as straightforward as transforming learning activities into games or a more subtle application of game-design principles to learning tasks.

Gamifying your classroom can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it. Some teachers choose to create their own game for their classroom in order to customize features including backstory, characters, rules, and objectives. At the same time, there are many user-friendly apps that teachers use to simplify those features.

As a classroom teacher, I gamified my classroom because I needed an engaging way to deliver the online lessons I created for students during reading and math workshop. I was able to turn my online lessons into an adventure with a storyline, obstacles, and learning challenges. I had read research about the benefits of gamification, but I was still surprised to see such a remarkable transformation in my classroom. In just a few months I saw amazing benefits!

Social-emotional growth
I’ve spent that last few years implementing different vocabulary and integrating specific read-alouds to help my students develop a growth mindset. In particular, I wanted my students to develop grit and perseverance—a mindset that welcomes challenges and does not give up easily. When I gamified my classroom, I realized that the nature of gameplay promotes positive challenge and helps my students practice and apply a growth mindset.

One of the most amazing shifts I noticed was my students’ response to failure. Rather than feeling defeated when failing at a task in our game, my students have returned to the task with renewed determination, rising to the challenge with a positive attitude. In the past, a poor grade usually resulted in the negative feelings associated with failure. Within our game environment, however, students see mistakes as an opportunity to try again and do better. They are more willing to listen to and apply the feedback I give them because they are determined to master skills and level up.

Engagement and motivation
Not of all students are motivated by the grades they earn, but most are willing to spend hours working to beat a challenging level in their favorite video game. Pairing student motivation related to game playing along with learning tasks has great potential to increase student engagement. My students are excited to work online every day, even asking me for extra work so that they can earn points to level up. With students asking for additional work and persevering through tough learning challenges, it’s no wonder that my learners have shown so much academic success.

One of my students last year struggled to complete school work and would avoid working at home also. After we gamified our learning tasks, he showed his parents his work, asked for help at home, and displayed new focus at school. I was so encouraged to see this young man become excited to learn.

Positive relationships and stronger community
Playing with my students broke down social barriers that usually take a significant amount of time to overcome. I have been able to build trust with my students quickly, and that has allowed me to challenge my students in new ways. Building a positive community within a competitive gaming situation is critical. Friendly competition is great, but what’s even better is a collective community that is genuinely interested in the learning of everyone involved. One way that we build our community is through collaborative battles within our game. When the class is counting on every student to work hard and be prepared, students are motivated to invest in their peers.

My tool of choice
I began gamifying my classroom by using Classcraft, a gamification platform in which students work collaboratively and independently. Each player customizes their own avatar that they work to develop by earning points, and teams work together to support one another’s learning and development. Students and teams can earn points in a variety of fully customizable ways, allowing teachers to reinforce the learning and community behaviors their students need.

There are many different apps available to help teachers with gamification. Some have specific focuses like behavior management or academic progress. What I like about Classcraft is that it reinforces so many aspects of my classroom: positive social interaction, collaborative learning, behavior management, personalized academic lessons, and of course fun.

Classcraft’s quest feature allows me to turn my online lessons into an adventure with a storyline, obstacles, and learning challenges. My class works together during formative review challenges to defeat a fictional character. As students earn points and level up, they unlock rewards such as choosing a new seat in class, obtaining extra time on an assignment, or upgrading armor and pets for their avatar.

Other teachers in my school are beginning to use Classcraft, and the new Engagement Management System gives our teachers and administrators real-time feedback to track and improve academic success as well as social-emotional behavior. With this information, teachers like me are equipped to make informed decisions.

In all, I’m so pleased with the impact gamification has had on my students, from building a positive class community to strengthening social skills and increasing engagement. My students are shining, and of course, we are having so much fun along the way!

Remaining a tech-savvy educator means keeping on top of the myriad changes and trends in education, how technology can support those trends, and how teaching and learning can best benefit from near-constant change.

Below, we’ve gathered some of the latest and most relevant marketplace news to keep you up-to-date on product developments, teaching and learning initiatives, and new trends in education.

Teq, a Long Island-based educational technology and professional development (PD) company, has received approval from the New York State Department of Education to provide Continuing Teacher and Leader Education (CTLE). Teq Online PD offers educators unlimited access to over 200 live and archived professional development sessions focused on the effective integration of technology into instruction. There are certification tracks on Google, Microsoft, Apple, SMART, among other topics, like online assessment, STEM, ELA, Math, Social Studies, and PBL. All of these courses and certifications are now CTLE approved. Read more.

By advancing the learning experience with hands-on, relatable and academically rigorous games, Triseum is transforming higher education as we know it. A new round of funding is enabling the company to make an even bigger difference in the way students learn. Triseum, which grew out of the LIVE Lab at Texas A&M University, has closed an additional $2 million in funding led by existing private investors, enabling the company to further build out its products, operations and team. Read more.

Edmentum, a provider of web-based learning solutions, announces a brand-new K-6 math, reading, and ELA individualized learning program. This release builds upon Edmentum’s mission of being educators’ most trusted partner in creating successful student outcomes everywhere learning occurs. Edmentum’s new solution pairs adaptive diagnostic assessments with individualized learning paths. The program is designed by educators for educators to provide targeted, assessment-driven instruction, reinforcement, and support in math, reading, and language arts. Read more.

The Learning Assembly, a national network of education organizations that help educators rigorously implement and assess innovative tools to support teaching and learning, released the results of a national survey of K-12 public school parents designed to gauge their perceptions of technology use in school. According to the survey, parents see a growing role of technology in schools, with 66% of parents indicating that technology use has increased over the past few years. The survey also shows that while 93% of parents believe in the use of technology to tailor student learning, only 1 in 3 believe that schools are currently doing an excellent job using technology for this purpose. Read more.

Common Sense released its newest report, Connection and Control: Case Studies of Media Use Among Lower-Income Minority Youth and Parents. The report showed striking differences in media use among varying demographics. Teens and tweens from lower-income families spend more time with media than those from higher-income families. And African-American teens use an average of over 11 hours of media a day, compared with almost nine hours among Latinos and eight and a half among whites. Read more.

Study.com has launched a series of articles and teaching resources designed to address the learning challenges associated with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The 15 articles and 53 lessons have been released in conjunction with ADHD awareness month and include parent and teacher strategies to support learners in school and at home. Read more.

All middle schools in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) have officially begun to incorporate digital citizenship education into the curriculum. The curriculum, which covers issues such as privacy, cyberbullying, internet safety and other digital dilemmas, is being offered thanks to a partnership with Common Sense Education and a generous grant from the Delaney Family Fund. The program will extend to students in all grade levels over the next three years. Read more.

With Build English Fast, neuroscience-designed software from Scientific Learning Corp., K-12 schools are taking advantage of research on how the brain learns and the latest technology to accelerate English language acquisition for English language learners (ELLs). Of course, students who are not familiar with English idioms, cultural references, and vocabulary may need extra support when learning the language. To help teachers provide targeted support, Scientific Learning has released the Build English Fast Offline Resources for English Learners. Read more.

Do K-12 educators have the power to shape their professional learning destinies? In a nationwide survey of more than 500 principals and teachers, the resounding answer is “not enough.” Episode 4 of the Performance Matters (formerly Truenorthlogic) Educator Viewpoints on Personalized Professional Learning Salon Series explores ways to increase relevance and choice in teacher professional learning. K-12 teachers, school leaders and district administrators are invited to discuss these issues in a free webinar on October 27 at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Read more.