In the week leading up to this session I was excited to take part in it. When I read that we were using Minecraft, I was even more excited as I had previously played this game. This meant that I knew how to use and play the game. However, I know that not everyone believes games are the best way to teach children as gaming is hugely popular in the UK with almost 86% of 5-7-year-old children and 90% of 8-11 year old children using gaming devices regularly (Ofcom, 2011). An argument against gaming could be that it could miss interpreted by pupils as just gaming and not teaching. This is backed up by Beauchamp as “Not only do [teachers] have to become familiar with the games, they also have to ensure that they make clear the way in which they want for the game to used.” (Beauchamp, 2012, p.9)
In this session we were tasked with using Minecraft to create some lesson plans. After learning what the task was, we could play around with the game. As I had used the game before I was quick to refamiliarize myself with it. However, other members had never used the game before and struggled to get the hang of it. This could be a limitation in a classroom and could raise questions about the effectiveness of gaming in teaching.
After playing around for a while my group and I then set out to choose what experiences and outcome we wanted to use. These are the Es&Os we decided fitted our plans the best:
LIT 0-09b / LIT 0-31a – I enjoy exploring events and characters in stories and other texts and I use what I learn to invent my own, sharing these with others in imaginative ways.
HWB 2-19a – Opportunities to carry out different activities and roles in a variety of settings have enabled me to identify my achievements, skills and areas for development. This will help me to prepare for the next stage in my life and learning.
After creating plans and linking them to Es&Os we were then to present them too the class. The majority of the feedback was very good, with our ideas being praised for being original. The only critique was that our plans may take a while for the pupil to carry out and would take more than one lesson to complete.
After planning a lesson around game-based learning, I have seen how effective it could be. I believe there are an infinite number of ways you could use gaming in teaching. I know that if games-based learning was around when I was in school, I would have been even more interested and would have engaged more in other lessons too.
References:
Ofcom (2011) Children and parents: media use and attitudes report. [Online] Available:
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0030/55479/children_and_parents.pdf [Accessed: 10 March 2019].
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary School: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.
