This Months Newsletter

Minecraft Progression

How it can be used in the classroom...

Why Minecraft?

Learners will likely be aware of Minecraft from an early age; they'll know the concept of the ‘game’, and may they have seen it played.

Minecraft for Education allows teachers to:

Set tasks
Make use of subject kits
Record progress
Apply & develop coding skills

Minecraft can be used by learners as a presentation tool. They can recreate what they are learning about in class and add information to their work.

Implementing Minecraft in your school

Staff and learners will be at different points of understanding and ability in using Minecraft.

Staff should not worry about their ability to use Minecraft, instead, they need to develop their understanding of what Minecraft allows their learners to achieve.

This page will lead you through the different stages of using Minecraft, schools can identify where their staff and learners are in their understanding and plan for the progression over time to develop skills as far as possible.

Schools should plan their progression for where they intend to develop their learners' skills once they have moved through each stage.

Literacy skills

Writing

Learners can add signs and boards to their builds to give information, these are limited in size so they may need to edit the information to fit. This writing is usually factual and used as a reference by those visiting the world
NPCs (Non-Playing Characters) can be added for learners to add information, using NPCs allows information to be written in a more personal style. These NPCs can be used as tour guides or characters from stories.
Screen-recording builds, once learners have created their piece of work, they can screen-record a 'tour' of what they have built. To do this effectively they will need to plan out their tour and write a script they will read from when recording.

Oracy

When screen recording, learners will need to practice and refine their presentation. This will allow them the opportunity to hear back their oracy skills and make necessary adjustments to create an interesting presentation.

Numeracy skills

NB. Blocks in Minecraft are cubes, they measure 1 square meter.

Calculation

In recreating known structures/objects, learners can develop their understanding of ratio

Measurement

By recreating known structures/objects, learners can build to-scale
Playing Minecraft as an E-Sport will develop learners' understanding of time management

Shape and space

Learners can develop their understanding of the perimeter around a block/building
They can create 3D replicas of shapes and use signs to label

Position

Using coordinates, learners can find the builds of their peers, understanding that the values represent the X, Y and Z axis

Science & Technology

Design thinking and engineering offer technical and creative ways to meet society’s needs and wants.

Minecraft can be used to allow learners to plan and build their designs.

They can choose different materials to build with and document their build and their design choices using the camera, portfolio and book & quill.

Learners are also able to explain design changes and the rationale behind having to make these changes.

A brief can be set for learners and they fulfil this, this could be completed collaboratively or independently.

Learning through play (Possibly Reception/Year 1*)

The first step of using Minecraft will be for learners to develop their skills through 'playing' on Minecraft, this directed play would be to ask learners to build by trying out different blocks.

When new skills are being developed, teachers could allow learners to experiment before being expected to implement their new skills e.g. using the camera and portfolio.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

Building to task (Possibly Reception/Year 1*)

Teachers can set parameters for learners to build to, this could be rebuilding their home or recreating a minibeast accurately.

These builds can be created individually or learners can work collaboratively on builds.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

Adding information (Possibly Year 1/Year 2*)

Learners can add signs/boards to which they can add text. This can allow them to add information to their builds which they have gathered from other classroom tasks.

e.g. When building a Tudor house, signs can be added to describe and give more information about the features they have added.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

Evidencing builds (Possibly Year 3/Year 4*)

Initially, teachers can save evidence of the builds created by learners by 'Hosting' worlds for learners to join. This will mean that all learners join a world owned by the teacher, and anything they create will be saved.

This will also allow for the opportunity for learners to collaborate on what they are building.

In the inventory available to learners can make use of a camera to take images of what learners are creating. These can then be added to a portfolio which would document the build process. Or they may use a Book & Quill which allows learners to add their images and also add text to further explain what they have created.

These can then be exported as PDFs.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

Camera

Portfolio

Book & Quill

Lessons Library (Possibly Year 3 and above*)

Within the lesson library, teachers and learners have access to

Subject Kits- a range of lessons created to support learning through Minecraft
Monthly Build Challenges- activities created to allow learners to develop their skills through topical activities
Starter Worlds- Biomes and Build Plates which can be used by teachers and pupils to create on
How to Play- Instructions and Guides on how to make the most of Minecraft for Education

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

Using NPCs (Possibly Year 5 and above*)

NPCs can be added to give a 'real-world' feeling to a user's interaction. NPCs allow learners to add text and hyperlinks to their work.

Settings must be changed to allow NPCs to be used in a world.

In the Game Settings change the permission level for players who join your world to 'Member', then in the 'Chat' enter /wb this will change the Worldbuilder status to true, allowing users to add NPCs.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

Retelling stories/events (Possibly Year 5 and above*)

Minecraft can be used to retell stories, by adding NPCs they can use them as characters retelling events. The NPCs can be used to retell events from the different characters' points of view.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

A Christmas Carol- A world created retelling the story, the creator here has used NPCs, hyperlinks to the story and command blocks to teleport the users.

They have added a camera, portfolio and book & quill, for the user to use to document their story.

This shows the potential of what is possible for learners using Minecraft to create and retell stories.

A Midsummer Night's Dream- In this example, learners were asked to recreate the scenes of the story.

In each scene, learners were then asked to add the characters who appeared in that scene and add what happened to that character and how they think they would have felt.

Learners then wrote a script to explain what they had done during the process and screen-recorded the results.

Redstone (Possibly Year 6 and above*)

Essentially allows the user to create circuits. Through the use of switches, buttons or pressure plates users can activate doors, lamps and note blocks.

This YouTube video will allow you to see the full extent of Redstone and its uses.

Your learners could make use of it to experiment with circuits or to highlight areas of their builds.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

E-Sports (Possibly Year 4 and above*)

E-Sports is the name for competitive video gaming. Minecraft allows learners to compete as part of a team to complete a set objective within a set time frame.

Minecraft Esports Playbook Guide

Develop your learners' collaboration, time management and problem-solving skills. Learners can be given roles within the team and develop their understanding of relying on others to fulfil their roles for the benefit of the team.

There are several worlds created for use with Esports, these can be used when teachers are making use of Esports in their teaching and learning activities.

*All year groups are suggestions based on knowledge of examples where this has been implemented successfully in classrooms

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