Pedagogical Insights into the Use of Minecraft within Educational Settings

Gisli THORSTEINSSON¹, Andrei NICULESCU^2,3

Abstract: This article highlights a research study that examined teachers’ and students’ work utilising the popular PC game Minecraft within an educational setting. The main purpose of the study was to give insights into the pedagogy of using Minecraft within such a context. Interviews were undertaken with practicing teachers, observations were carried out and related documents were analysed. The data produced was qualitative, while the analysis was based on grounded theory principles and an interpretive paradigm. The key issues under consideration in the research were the following: a) the role of teachers in this game-driven educational context, b) the extent to which the Minecraft software affects students’ learning practices and c) how the teachers’ pedagogy could be enhanced. The study revealed both pedagogical benefits and drawbacks. The findings from this study suggest that students were mostly motivated to use Minecraft in its creative mode that enhanced learners’ problem solving skills and helped them to reach a compromise. The high creative potential of Minecraft also offered teachers a broad range of possibilities to assign interdisciplinary project-based collaborative tasks.

Keywords: Minecraft, gamification learning, education, pedagogy, research, teachers and students.

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CITE THIS PAPER AS:
Gisli THORSTEINSSON, Andrei NICULESCU, Pedagogical Insights into the Use of Minecraft within Educational Settings, Studies in Informatics and Control, ISSN 1220-1766, vol. 25(4), pp. 507-516, 2016. https://doi.org/10.24846/v25i4y201612