We are witnessing an excitement about digital games and related immersive media as these become ever more prevalent in the world. Governments, private companies, and research institutes are investing in these technologies in hopes of transforming education. However, while scholarship on digital game-based learning has been steadily growing over the last few decades, we still know little about how teachers experience, design curricula for, and use digital games as teaching tools. This knowledge gap stems from researchers focusing on the design of educational games and game-intervention effects on student outcomes. This dissertation aims to address this gap by examining how K-12 teachers integrate Minecraft Education Edition as a teaching tool into formal instruction. The most successful video game to date, Minecraft, is a digital sandbox game that allows players to build and explore virtual worlds made of blocks. Through three studies, I seek to understand better the experiences of teachers who integrate the sandbox game into their teaching practice.In the first study, I analyze a publicly available repository of lesson plans from the Minecraft Education Edition website. Using descriptive statistics, I report the lessons' target students' ages, subjects, and skills. Then, using qualitative methods, I identify a taxonomy of seven design dimensions and four lesson types based on different combinations of these dimensions. These findings provide a lens to describe what lessons with Minecraft look like and what variations teachers make when designing learning activities with the sandbox game. In the second study, 92 K-12 teachers sampled from the Minecraft Education Edition community responded to an online survey. The findings showed that most teachers used the game weekly and across subject areas. The results also revealed that almost all the teachers faced multiple challenges in their game integration. A thematic analysis of open-ended questions surfaced five challenge themes. Two themes specifically, content and pedagogy, contribute to the literature by highlighting difficulties teachers face in sourcing curricular materials and managing classroom activities with the sandbox game. In the third study, I use a case study methodology to examine how three experienced Minecraft-using teachers think about, design curricular materials with, and use Minecraft Education Edition in their teaching practice. Results showed that all three teachers viewed the game as a powerful teaching tool that increased student motivation, engagement, and collaboration. However, they shared qualitatively different learning activities and approaches to curricular design with the game. One key variation hinged on whether teachers viewed Minecraft as a blank canvass with which students could represent their learning or as a tool for the teacher to create a curated virtual world with prescribed student activities to follow. Moreover, the findings revealed that curricular design with a commercial sandbox game could involve collaborations between diverse stakeholders: teachers, students, content experts, and game publishers. Collectively, this dissertation contributes to our theoretical and applied knowledge of what teaching with commercial digital sandbox games entails. In particular, it sheds light on how teachers design curricula with Minecraft Education Edition. Moreover, the findings carry practical implications for teachers, policymakers, and game publishers.

Creator

• Bar-El, David

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-f0d2-w109

Subject

• Instructional design
• Pedagogy
• Educational technology

Language

• en

Alternate Identifier

• etdadmin_upload_929400
• http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:16271

Keyword

• Digital games
• Metaverse
• Mixed-Methods
• Teacher practice
• Game based learning
• Minecraft

Date created

• 2022-01-01

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright