The use of Minecraft Education Edition (MME) to support the development of volume and capacity in disengaged Year 6 students.

Some students experience disengagement in mathematics, experiencing a general lack of affective, cognitive and behavioural engagement in the mathematical lessons delivered by their teachers. The lack of engagement generally results in a diminished capacity to develop mathematical concepts. The aim of this research is to support a small group of year six students disengaged in mathematics by shifting their learning experience of volume and capacity to a virtual digital environment created with MEE. Children generally show positive attitudes towards video games and research has shown that Minecraft is the first video gaming platform that has sparked an increasing interest across diverse genders of students. The instruction of year six geometric concepts of volume and capacity can significantly benefit from the use of manipulatives to facilitate the development of the necessary relational concepts of three-dimensional figures. As MEE creates an environment where children can build shapes and structures using blocks that are assigned a simple one cubic metre measurement, it will allow the students to experience their learning of volume and capacity by directly relating to the shapes that they are building.

Proposed intervention:

The benefits of educational strategies that leverage on virtual learning environments with specific regards to Minecrtaft.

Borba et al. (2010) found in their studies that virtual learning environments changed the way knowledge is produced. Borba et al. (2010) continued stating that virtual environments, for example, the internet, software platforms can be defined as a medium that transforms the knowledge that teachers and student share. Teachers utilise in virtual environments a toolset of diverse representations such as videos, figures, sounds, texts, actions. Knowing, therefore, develops in virtual environments as a combination of different representations that encourages new ways of solutions (Borba et al. 2010).

Among virtual reality environments, the use of game-based platforms for educational purposes is a relatively recent field of research (Holloway et al. 2013) Of all the games played by children at this time, Minecraft plays a significant role in shaping what gaming between the age of 3 and 12 looks like these days (Mavoa, Carter & Gibbs, 2017). The game can be used in the teaching of mathematics in a complex array of modalities, from instruction, remediation, extension and support both locally in school settings, or remotely anywhere since it allows for an online and offline mode (Bos et al., 2014).