We all know that kids today love technology. Whether it’s tablets, smartphones, laptops, or whatever else they play with, once they hit nine or 10 years old, they seem to be glued to some sort of device. The common belief is that they’re wasting all of their time playing meaningless games or sending pointless pictures to their friends, who are also glued to their devices all day long. This, however, is simply not true. In fact, a lot of these children are sitting in front of computers and bettering themselves at the same time. That’s right—they’re playing Minecraft.



Real and Beneficial Classroom Uses for Minecraft


It seems as though Minecraft has become second nature for a lot of kids and this is not necessarily a bad thing. Most people see kids playing a computer game and instinctively believe that it has no lasting value in any aspect of their lives. Minecraft, however, is just a bit different. It’s designed with what’s referred to as a ‘sandbox’ structure, meaning that students can create anything using an unlimited amount of various resources. It’s even block-based, which is a very popular way for students to learn the basics of programming at an early age. Teachers are even finding ways to incorporate Minecraft into a number of different subjects, like history, math, ELA, and world languages, boosting student engagement in the process and helping catalyze their STEM skills development.


One of the reasons for this increased engagement is because students can immediately see the impact they have on a virtual world. What’s more is that they can collaborate with their peers and share this experience in real time. It really is a safe space for students to have fun and learn very important skills using a medium that they are familiar with and one that they very much enjoy. Today, children want to have a voice in their learning and contribute something meaningful in the classroom, which is exactly what Minecraft allows them to do; it gives them a space where they truly feel like they belong. And, for teachers, it gives them a new and exciting way to teach children a wide range of requirements, some of which we’ll share with you now.


The different lengths and colors of the blocks can help educators teach kids about math and, particularly, math manipulatives. It also allows students to create circuits, design logic-based sequences, and do other programming-related tasks, which greatly helps them develop computational thinking skills. Kids can even learn algebra and geometry skills early on in their lives without any complex language or variables on the screen; they’re simply building structures to certain specifications and then having the vocabulary introduced later on. Minecraft even helps in foreign language classrooms by allowing students to connect with someone who speaks the language they’re learning and, while working together, they can process the words and meanings while they learn. So, yes, it’s not all fun and games when it comes to Minecraft as we’ll continue to explore more later on.



Minecraft is Designed to Keep Kids Coding For Life


It’s no longer any secret that coding is the most sought after skill in the current workforce. School leaders have already used this information to shake up their curricula and provide kids with learning opportunities that mirror the real world. This shift has included a number of new innovations for both students and teachers, including everything from robotics to Minecraft. Yes, Minecraft is a legitimate teaching tool in the classroom for an increasing number of educators. In some states, schools are required to offer computer science courses that help students learn specific skills they can use it all classes, including math, science, and foreign language, and Minecraft is one way in which they can do just that. More than that, since kids often lack a motivation to try coding, Minecraft serves as a tool to get them interested.


Like a similar coding tool (Scratch), Minecraft is made up of what are described as interest-based communities, which students join and become active members of. This helps them essentially build a network they can keep coming back to once the school day is over and provides them with a renewed sense of motivation to explore coding further. Just like in the real world, students are able to manage projects, make noticeable progress, and enjoy collaborative success. In these communities, students can share projects, successes, and anything else they’d like. The reach and influence of these communities indicates the strength of Minecraft as a learning tool and it also doesn’t hurt that students are able to get more familiar with coding at the same time.


When used in the ideal way, Minecraft provides students with the chance to explore virtual worlds they create based on their own interests. Although it didn’t exactly start out as a coding tool (or even an educational tool), there have since been versions released that are designed specifically for this purpose. At the same time, teachers and students are teaming up to create more of these communities and strengthening many students’ interest in coding. By altering Minecraft to include an active community of educators, its creators were able to make sure it kept its educational value, which is obviously important for its continued use in the classroom. And, when students see their teachers engaging in a game they know and love themselves, it renews that engagement and desire to keep on programming for as long as possible.



Teaching Programming with Minecraft and Python


Aside from the new levels of engagement learning with Minecraft provides for students, its ultimate goal when being used in the classroom is to help them develop computational thinking and programming skills. Of course, there are a lot of different programming languages in the mix right now, including Blockly, JavaScript, and others, but the one that kids can best get a handle on while playing Minecraft is probably Python. When deployed in the classroom, certain versions of Minecraft help kids use coding to conquer various games and make use of Python to solve challenges. If you’re at all familiar with Minecraft, you know it’s largely block-based, meaning that the sequences kids build are composed of tons and tons of tiny blocks. Since Python is open source and easy to learn, the two fit together pretty seamlessly.


Combining Minecraft and Python allows teachers to help students break down programming into a series of smaller learning experiences. At each stage, students are introduced to a new concept, like sequential programming, variables, or conditional statements, for example. There’s even the opportunity for kids to type the code themselves and get experience in that fashion, which is huge for their development. It’s such a great learning tool because coding is an integral and regular part of the gaming experience, rather than something that just appears every so often. Not only is this designed to trigger maximum learning, it makes things a lot more challenging and interesting for kids, many of whom tend to breeze through video games without ever tripping up at all. Now, however, they have to be more careful with their moves and bring that computational thinking aspect into play.


Much of the Minecraft experience is built around embarking on a journey, only, in the educational version of the game, kids need to be able to code in order to survive. To make it easier on them, Minecraft and its partners have even created online videos and tutorials that illustrate what students need to do and the concepts they should be learning. These video resources are a great way to ensure that students are getting something meaningful out of their Minecraft experiences by providing them with specific goals and outcomes to achieve. Each mission students complete will teach them new programming skills that prepare them for the next one. Essentially, by the time they’re ready to complete all of the available Minecraft challenges, they should have gained a number of key programming skills, including the ability to recognize and understand the Python language at a basic level.


In the 21st century, social and emotional learning has become a large part of the education teachers strive to create for their students. Almost as much focus has been put on helping students develop SEL skills, like empathy and problem solving, as there has been on building STEM skills, like programming and engineering. We used the term ‘sandbox’ earlier to describe Minecraft and this is perhaps even more applicable when it comes to its use in SEL. According to a report from Getting Smart, there is a legitimate connection between using Minecraft in the classroom and the advancement of SEL outcomes in students. When surveyed as part of the report, almost 98 percent of teachers who have used Minecraft said that problem solving is the top skill their students learned from in-class or extracurricular Minecraft use.


Minecraft also helps students develop other key SEL skills quicker than they would normally be able to. These include skills like creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration, which are all extremely pertinent in the modern workforce. Some other slightly less common real-world skills that students have been known to develop while using Minecraft in the classroom include decision-making and communication. Teachers have remarked that each of these are positively affected when their students have engaged in the games and challenges within Minecraft. The beauty is that whether students are working in small groups or on their own, it seems apparent that they’re still developing these skills at a pretty quick pace. Finally, Minecraft also helps students build empathy skills whether it comes from interactions with classmates or from controlling characters in the game.


Even outside of the development of SEL skills, evidence shows that Minecraft is a transformational tool when it comes to 21st century learning. The most critical element in this process is the teacher. As long as students have teachers who are clear about learning objectives, function as learning guides, and promote student agency, a lot of the SEL skills development should take care of itself. Games are powerful motivators for young students, especially something like Minecraft, which they would more than likely be playing for fun if they were not using it in school. It really is the perfect way to combine SEL development with real-world readiness and it does so by creating an interactive atmosphere that kids genuinely enjoy. As SEL skills grow to be more pertinent, there is no reason to think the use of Minecraft in education is going to slow down.



Minecraft is Great for Teaching Science Standards


Since Minecraft has undergone some education-specific updates, it’s allowed both teachers and district leaders the opportunity to get more creative with their curricula. Schools’ curricula, of course, have to reflect certain standards and, among those standards for a lot of schools, is having students create a research project. You might be wondering how exactly Minecraft would come into play in this situation, but we’ve already shown how it can be used in English and foreign language classrooms, so bear with us. Essentially, the worlds that students create in Minecraft could be used as primary source documents on which they could base various research. Okay, that’s all. You can tune out now. But, isn’t that a pretty cool way of utilizing the game for learning?


These days, standards are being adjusted to help better prepare students for a more technical world. And, when we say a more technical world, we mean computer science. Care to take a guess on how many computer science jobs are currently unfilled in the United States alone? Tens and tens of thousands. That’s because students either have no interest in pursuing coding or other STEM disciplines or because they were not given the opportunity to do so. Minecraft, however, is an affordable and relatively simple way for teachers to introduce them to programming and keep their attention for long periods of time—like years. All across the country, states are adopting new standards for their students and most of them have to do with computer science. Just one example of these new standards is third to fifth-graders needing to be able to construct and execute an algorithm that includes sequencing, loops, and conditionals to accomplish a specific task. These are all elements of coding and all activities that can be done within Minecraft.


This compels students to work together and come up with the logic needed to build a specific structure to accomplish what they need to get done. They can then use a loop to create more of those structures in the same way, learning the replication process at the same time. Using Minecraft and tools that support it has benefits for teachers as well as providing them with a visual aid when explaining algorithms, loops, and logic to students. It’s also an easy way for them to promote computational thinking among the students in their classroom and perfect for having students demonstrate what they’ve learned since they can just replicate their programs as many times as they want. Once students use Minecraft to discover what it’s like to code, they can progress on to learning about how to simplify their code and so on, using Minecraft as a standards-based tool to help get them ready for all kinds of real-world, STEM challenges!


For the latest EdTech, STEM, and 21st century education news, follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Like us on Facebook, too, or sign up for our newsletter for our latest product announcements and offerings. If you have an idea for an Eduporium Weekly theme, send us a message on social media or comment below.