Well, it's official.  The first trimester of the academic year is over, and I'm going to count my foray into Minecraft: Education Edition as a success.  It's remarkable to me how much work it was to design a fully gamified classroom experience.  Not that the work didn't pay off - it absolutely did!  Perhaps the greatest indicator of success is the fact that my students covered even more content than usual for this time of year, and achieved more in terms of their Social Studies grades.  I believe in maintaining consistently high expectations for my students, for my kids in Honors and for my students in grade level or strategic classes.  So imagine my surprise when I realized that most of my students earned A's for the trimester - seriously. Eight of my seventy-five students received anything less than an A, and all students passed the course. 

​Every. Single. One.

Was this massive boost in achievement due to my transition to quest-based learning in Social Studies? Was it due to the motivation they experienced in response to the gamified elements of the 3D Game Lab MLS I switched to for content delivery, or the epic meaning of the narrative adventure I wrote? Or, was it the introduction of Minecraft: Education Edition that made them so excited to come to class each day?  

I don't know. 

But, I am awfully happy to see my students so happy.  At some point in public education, the system tends to kill the joy of learning.  At a time when sixth graders generally start settling into the middle school shuffle, deciding to be a little too cool and to hide their smarts, my kiddos are still joyfully bounding into the room in the morning, twenty or thirty minutes before the bell, just so they can finish their Minecraft build, or knock out one more quest.  I think that says a lot about student morale, and I can't tell you how much my heart has responded to their positive attitudes. 

By far, the most labor intensive task I had this trimester was the intentional planning and structuring of Minecraft quests.  Because I believe in the power of sharing, and because there might be another 6th or 7th grade Social Studies teacher out there wanting to dive in, but afraid of the waters... here is my entire Trimester 1 Unit Plan for Ancient Civilizations.  If you use it, let me know.  Maybe we can compare notes and strengthen any weaknesses.  I'd love to collaborate!

"We all have our moments of brilliance and glory and this was mine..."
-from "The Great Mouse Plot" by Roald Dahl

This past spring, revolutionizing my classroom became my biggest priority.  For the last decade, my classroom has served as a pilot for numerous technology initiatives in Palm Springs Unified.  My beloved Room 208 was the first middle school 24/7 classroom in the district, the first 2:1 iPad classroom in the district, one of the first BYOD classrooms in the district, and one of the first 1:1 Chromebook classrooms, too.  I've rolled out a lot of new technology over the years, and worked to troubleshoot the workflow on a variety of devices with kids of all achievement levels.  Through it all, constructivism has remained the "true north" of my pedagogy, and students making their own meaning has always been the goal.  

Over the years, I've increased the amount of choice my students have in terms of task, team, technique, and time.  I've given back 20% of their "work week" for entirely self-directed, ungraded research projects, and I've made digital storytelling a pillar of my classroom. Student voices have flourished - there is some absolutely incredible student-created content on my YouTube channel to prove it.  And yet...

Something has been missing.  I won't say that I've been searching for a silver bullet for all of the challenges we face in education - because no such remedy exists.  But there has been a missing element in my classroom, a missing piece of my professional practice and I've been searching for and hoping to find.  And I think, maybe, I finally have it.

Last semester in my graduate program, a lot of my thinking about gamification was refined to a workable idea, a grand mashup of everything I've learned over the course of three classes that have dealt with gamified curriculum.  My thoughts deal specifically with the value of quest-based learning and how I can integrate Minecraft into my curriculum. For my final project, I developed the vision for my classroom next year.  I also began the practical work of building out the components I need in order to make it come alive.  

Being a digital storyteller first and foremost, of course I chose to share my ideas via YouTube.  Take a look:

So, that's my vision in a nutshell.  I've already finished building out the first unit for Social Studies in Rezzly's 3D Game Lab.  The Minecraft tasks I've embedded are meaningful and will give kids an authentic opportunity to problem-solve and create.  ETIS assures me that a cart of Minecraft-ready devices will be delivered in the fall, the Minecraft: Education Edition usernames will be set up, and my journey to become redefine my classroom with gamification will truly begin. 

I am so excited!

Gamification and game-based learning (GBL) has captured my imagination as a teacher and driven my professional development over the past several years.  I find GBL so fascinating that I have elected to take three different classes at BSU related to gaming in the classroom.  Now, this year, I am piloting the use of Minecraft Education Edition in my 6th grade classroom.  Watching my students flourish as a result of their gameplay has offered incredible insight about the motivating factors of GBL and why it can be such an effective way to reach our students.


From a student’s standpoint, the appeal of games is huge. According to Knewton Infographics, over 5 million people play an average of 45 hours worth of games per week.  As a teacher, why not leverage games to benefit learning?  There has long been debate over the true merit of educational games (called “serious games”) when compared to games created for recreation (called “commercial games”).  However, it is possible to transform the purpose of commercial games by changing the context in which the game is played.  This is called contextual transposition. According to a Haiku Deck presentation authored by BSU professor, Dr. Chris Haskell, “Contextual transposition occurs when one changes the context of a tool or experience in order to achieve something that the game designer did not intend.”  This applies to the use of Minecraft in the classroom, because Minecraft was originally created as a commercial game.  Microsoft has adapted it for use in the education setting, but its purpose (to create, build, survival, and/or thrive) remains the same.


The relative advantage to using Minecraft and other games for learning is increased student engagement.  Since many students love playing games, it makes sense to utilize them in the classroom.  Another relative advantage of game play is that it makes content more relevant and memorable for students.  The concrete elements of gameplay can help students retain greater amounts of information based on their virtual experiences.  When students are tasked with creating games, both their level of engagement as well as their feelings of ownership increase even further.  In an article published in Educational Psychologist, Kafai and Burke contend that creating games is the ultimate constructivist learning activity.  They cite the work of Papert and Piaget to support their claim, reminding readers that games allow students to play as well as learn from a personal perspective.


Personalized learning an important key to educative success.  Even now, at the age of 35, I vividly recall playing two digital games when I was in elementary school: Oregon Trail and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego?  To this day, I can describe the challenges of westward expansion and trace the route of the Oregon trail.  I guarantee that I would not be able to do that without exposure to Social Studies content through gameplay.



References:
The Gamification of Education Infographic. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2017, from https://www.knewton.com/infographics/gamification-education/


Using Commercial Games in Education. (2015, Nov 30). Retrieved October 20, 2017, from https://www.haikudeck.com/using-commercial-games-education-presentation-GWPwqgtm9n


​Kafai, Y. B., & Burke, Q. (2015, October 02). Constructionist Gaming: Understanding the Benefits of Making Games for Learning. Retrieved October 23, 2017, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4784508/