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April 24, 2020

Minecraft Education Studio: Shaping the future with game-based learning

Today, the challenge for initial teacher education is to empower preservice teachers with the learning tools and expertise to prepare students for a fast-changing world, where jobs involving routine cognitive and manual skills are in decline. The Institute of Education at Dublin City University (DCU) is leading the way with the world’s first Minecraft Education Studio, an immersive space where the game is used as a cross-curricular learning tool to develop critical thinking, communication, and collaboration—skills now considered vital for twenty-first century jobs.

Dublin City University Dcu Institute of Education

“A rich contextual game like Minecraft enables teachers to design learning environments that will help prepare students for the complex world they will be living and working in.”

Deirdre Butler, Digital Learning, DCU Institute of Education

At Dublin City University (DCU), the B.Ed four-year primary school teaching degree course—Institute of Education—has an annual intake of approximately 420 students, and prepares more than 50 percent of Ireland’s primary school teachers. Most students are recent graduates of secondary school, where their own education experience consists of exam-focused, rote learning. According to Deirdre Butler, Digital Learning at the Institute, the program has been developed by “unpicking” their experience and challenging them to think differently. 

“We have to challenge student teachers on what learning is because the skills required today for young people are completely different from what was required before. The pace of change has accelerated exponentially, and we have to prepare children to live and thrive in the complex connected world of the twenty-first century,” Butler explains. 

Butler has been exploring the role of game learning in pedagogy for more than 20 years. She was impressed by the gaming environment of Minecraft: Education Edition, and how it facilitates development of interdisciplinary skills that are difficult to teach. “I am trying to change the values, beliefs, and assumptions of my student teachers, because they come from one world, and are trying to prepare children for the future, in another world,” she says. “Minecraft gave me a vehicle to do it.” 

She is also excited about how the world’s best-selling “sandbox game” can spark a connection between a student’s passion outside school and what they experience in the classroom. Her enthusiasm was shared by Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, who visited the Dublin campus in October 2016. The seed of a partnership was sewn between DCU’s Institute of Education and Microsoft, resulting in the world’s first Minecraft Education Studio—where teachers are taught to explore and design new learning experiences using the game.

“We want our teachers to understand why they are using game-based learning, and how they can use Minecraft to capitalize on pupil engagement and motivation,” says Butler. “It’s not just learning about Vikings; it’s about connecting personally to children, about what’s important in their life. Minecraft and playing games are really important to many children, so teachers are able to make connections between home and school that weren’t possible before.”

New space, new ways of learning 

Butler’s mission to challenge the expectations of student teachers is evident as soon as you step into the Minecraft Education Studio. No chairs, tables, or podium. Instead, a bright open space with a wooden floor, Minecraft wallpaper specially printed to give a 3D effect, and a colorful selection of beanbags and cube stools. The lightweight furniture can be quickly reconfigured depending on the learning goals of each class. For Minecraft exploration, they might be shuffled into a horseshoe in front of huge screens where the game can be projected, the music booming out from speakers hidden in the ceiling.

Minimal and comfortable, student teachers can work individually or bring their beanbags together and collaborate, the lecturer walking between them, breaking down hierarchies, challenging ideas of what a learning environment should look and feel like. All of this creates an appropriate atmosphere for using Minecraft.   

By promoting creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive digital environment, Butler believes progress can be made in changing the way children are taught, enabling them to be better prepared for their education-to-employment journey. “Game learning lets you develop particular skills that are very difficult to develop in other ways,” she says. “I can’t see how teachers can design environments that will prepare students for the world they will be working in without rich contextual game-based environments like Minecraft.” 

A digital education strategy

More than 35 million educators and students in 115 countries are licensed to use Minecraft: Education Edition, but DCU is one of the only teacher colleges using Minecraft to train future educators. The Minecraft Studio experience empowers student teachers with a broad set of STEM education skills for when they enter classroom practice. 

Ireland’s education system is non-prescriptive when it comes to learning materials in primary schools, and teachers take it upon themselves to introduce games and game learning. To this end, Minecraft Education Studio embeds game learning in the Teacher Education College, laying the foundation for tomorrow’s teachers. 

Butler is one of the architects of a new Digital Learning Framework in Ireland, a Department of Education and Skills initiative that aspires to embed digital technologies in teaching and learning—precisely what the Minecraft Education Studio has turned into a practical reality. “You need implementation plans and structures to bring innovation into the classroom,” explains Butler. “The Digital Learning Framework is the skeleton; we’ve put flesh on the bones with Minecraft.”

Butler hopes the DCU digital learning module that incorporates Minecraft continues to prepare Minecraft Global Mentors, a community of educators who use game-based learning expertise to help other teachers, and foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. “For real change to happen in our schools, you have to engage in changed behavior,” says Butler. “By applying game-based learning and learning theory, Minecraft is one of the key ways we have to do this.”

“For real change to happen in our schools, you have to engage in changed behavior. By applying game-based learning and learning theory, Minecraft is one of the key ways we have to do this.”

Deirdre Butler, Digital Learning, DCU Institute of Education

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