=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2101/paper6
|storemode=property
|title=Tradeoffs in Combining Domain-Specific and Generic Skills’ Practice in Minecraft in Social Studies in Teacher Education
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2101/paper6.pdf
|volume=Vol-2101
|authors=Anders Mørch,Siv Eie,Louise Mifsud
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/avi/MorchEM18
}}
==Tradeoffs in Combining Domain-Specific and Generic Skills’ Practice in Minecraft in Social Studies in Teacher Education==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2101/paper6.pdf
Tradeoffs in Combining Domain-Specific and Generic
Skills’ Practice in Minecraft in Social Studies in Teacher
Education
Anders I. Mørch1, Siv Eie2, and Louise Mifsud2
1
Dept. of Education, University of Oslo, Norway
2
Dept. of Primary and Secondary Teacher Education, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
anders.morch@iped.uio.no, siv.eie@oslomet.no,
louise.mifsud@oslomet.no
Abstract. In this paper, we describe our efforts to combine generic (domain
general) and domain-specific skills’ practice in the same digital learning envi-
ronment. We have implemented part of the social studies subject curriculum for
lower secondary education in Norway (grades 8 to 10) in Minecraft for pre-
service teacher education. By leveraging Minecraft’s affordances for block
building and roleplaying, we have created the first version of an integrated
learning environment. We conducted a pilot study in an undergraduate pre-
service teacher education program and discuss our findings by drawing on em-
pirical data collected from 60 student teachers, using observations, question-
naires, and interviews. Our preliminary findings suggest that the student teach-
ers perceive the use of Minecraft in their teaching as a possible threat to do-
main-specific knowledge. They also consider generic skills such as design and
collaboration important and see the potential in Minecraft as a new way of
reaching their students.
Keywords: 3D Virtual World, 21st Century Skills, Collaborative Learning, De-
sign, Minecraft, Pedagogical Affordances, Teacher Education.
1 Introduction
Minecraft has been rated the most popular digital game among 9–14-year-old children
in Norway, but teachers’ perception of Minecraft as a game and not a tool for learning
poses a challenge. We argue that teachers and student teachers need a tool box for
meeting the interests of their future students on their own arena as well as fulfilling
the requirements of the curriculum; to accomplish this, we explore Minecraft’s poten-
tial for teaching and learning as it seems to provide affordances for the two require-
ments. Dikkers [7] suggested that the educational value of learning in digital gaming
environments is plentiful, pointing out “it can tell powerful stories, challenge the
mind, and convey the thinking of designers” [7, p.10]. We focus on the potential of
conveying “the thinking of designers” and give student teachers a new tool to support
44
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
the generic skill of designing in conjunction with learning social studies in lower sec-
ondary school.
Children are attracted to Minecraft because of its low threshold to participation and
high ceiling for engagement in design and role-playing activities; they mine building
blocks and craft tools, combat monsters, and collaborate with peers and allies in one
of four different gameplay modes (creative, survival, adventure, spectator) [15]. We
used the creative mode with many of the gaming elements turned off in the study we
report to emphasize the elementary design acts of placing and breaking basic building
blocks to support the design and modelling of symbolic buildings in a society (e.g.,
governmental, industrial, cultural, religious, historical) and roleplaying inside the
buildings to simulate knowledge-based activities.
Generic skills are not associated with any specific subject domain per se, but we
rely on them in many domains, and they contribute to overall performance. Recently,
they have received worldwide attention. For instance, a Norwegian White Paper with
recommendations to the new national curriculum in Norway emphasizes developing
students’ abilities to explore, create, communicate, interact, and participate [13]. Ge-
neric skills (also referred to as 21st century skills) also include problem solving, criti-
cal thinking, collaboration, decision-making, cultural awareness, visualization, learn-
ing to learn, academic basics (reading and writing; computational skills), adaptability,
personal development, and group effectiveness [1,5,11].
Students combine generic (domain general) and domain-specific knowledge and
skills when they learn. For example, visualization is used in many areas of mathemat-
ics, communication is required for language learning, and reading multiple languages
for deep learning in world history and religious studies. When teaching specific sub-
jects, generic skills are often taken for granted. In today’s multicultural society, with a
greater variety in children’s background and interests, strategies to develop integrated
learning environments have begun to appear.
The aim of this research is to understand how student teachers perceive the value
of generic skills in specific subject areas, in particular design (creation), collaboration,
and adaptability, through a dialectical interplay of generic and domain-specific skills
practice, exemplified by children building and playing Minecraft and other block-
building games. In other words, our focus is on how both types of skills can be prac-
ticed in the same lesson and in the same digital learning environment. We address the
following research questions in the pilot study:
1. What are student teachers’ perceptions of Minecraft for learning purposes?
2. What are the challenges and opportunities for teachers’ organization of Minecraft
lessons into two distinct activities: generic and domain-specific skills practices?
2 Related Work
Information and communication technology (ICT) in schools is often introduced
without taking into account pedagogical requirements, and “pushed” by technology
vendors and ICT staff. On the other end, many teachers are looked upon as protecting
their classrooms from the changes that follow from new technology, and Dikkers
45
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
introduced the metaphor teachers as conservants for the role of preserving traditional
school culture by fighting against outside pressure and lobbyists [7]. This is supported
by studies showing that the link between access to new technology and enhanced
academic achievement is unclear. A meta-study undertaken by Tamin et al. [16]
shows that the use of ICT for learning in school has a relatively small, but positive
effect for learning. Consequently, student teachers’ digital competence is crucial to
take advantage of the new technologies [9]. Furthermore, there are teachers who take
an active part in making changes with ICT themselves [14]; many do innovate and are
always searching for new ideas to improve their teaching with new material and ways
of presentation [7]. In other words, should we not start to think of teachers as meta-
designers [10] and view education as a design science [12]?
Minecraft is a sandbox game, which means that users in the game interact by plac-
ing and breaking three-dimensional (3D) blocks (modeled after 1 m3 physical con-
struction blocks) and communicate in parallel, mainly by chat but also by voice via
other applications. The open-ended nature of a sandbox game gives students great
freedom for explorative activities [15], which makes Minecraft suitable for scenario-
based learning, incremental and iterative activities, and role-playing. Minecraft shares
similarities with traditional block-building games, in that it has a Lego-like feel and
can be used in collaborative learning tasks with peers [4]. However, Minecraft ex-
tends Legos in several ways; for instance, it has an unlimited number of building
blocks, and users can create new building blocks and tools on the fly. These features
make Minecraft useful in a wide range of educational applications, and the construc-
tive play features inherited from wooden blocks, jigsaw puzzles, and Lego bricks can
improve different types of skills in children, such as spatial abilities [3]. For instance,
Minecraft has been used as a platform and tool in elementary and middle schools to
teach scientific topics in mathematics and chemistry by drawing on the spatial af-
fordances of the game [2,3]. Furthermore, Minecraft can be extended with tools that
enable children to learn programming in an incremental manner by introducing it as
one of several techniques to solve practical problems in the game environment.
Research has shown that Minecraft can motivate children to learn through immer-
sion and play, which means that one becomes involved in a subjective experience that
leads to a feeling of participating in a comprehensive, realistic experience [6]. Learn-
ing roleplaying teaching methods in a virtual learning environment has positive im-
pact on learning engagement [17].
Mørch et al. [14] studied collaborative learning and roleplay in Second Life and
found that carefully designed contexts for collaborative learning can increase the sup-
port of a 3D virtual world and that skilled instructors can accomplish the design work
as part of course preparation and execution. In addition, combining abstract and con-
crete learning activities in multiple rounds and debriefing sessions were useful [14].
We address the combination of abstract and concrete learning activities in our study.
46
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
3 Methods
The study was organized as an experimental teaching activity between two education-
al institutions in Norway (A and B) over a three-week period. Institution A provided
educational resources (15 MA students majoring in general education acted as tutors)
and institution B (60 BA student teachers majoring in social studies) carried out a
joint learning activity defined by an assignment created by institution B. The assign-
ment was to create a model of the Norwegian parliament building and to engage in
collaborative learning through the roleplay of a political decision-making process
inside the building based on a script collaboratively created in small groups. Thus, the
students had to acquire technical skills in using Minecraft in creative mode, detailed
knowledge about the parliament building and how the physical structures reflects the
political processes as well as how political decision making are played out in demo-
cratic society. The students worked in groups of four, and the role-plays were record-
ed by using a video-capture tool (Screencast-O-Matic).
We collected data by observation, a questionnaire informed by our research ques-
tions (N=38 respondents out of 60 participants), and interviews with two students (an
experienced player and one without prior experience in Minecraft). We used a version
of thematic analysis based on open coding to organize the textual data. We show ex-
amples of data representing three themes and summarize our results as points for dis-
cussion, as our findings are tentative (pilot study).
4 Data and Analysis
Of all the students teachers (N=60) only a few (N=4) reported previous experience
with Minecraft. The questionnaire indicated that most felt they did not get sufficient
time to learn how to use the technology during the time allocated for the activity.
Thirty percent indicated negative attitudes, such as “I will never use Minecraft” in
future teaching practices and described Minecraft as “taking time away from social
studies.” Despite this negative attitude, most saw a potential in Minecraft, as shown in
Excerpt 1 below. However, 47% indicated positive attitudes, including suggesting
future practices of Minecraft in their own classroom and outlining motivation as a key
reason. Informed by our focus on student teachers’ perception of Minecraft for learn-
ing purposes and taking into account generic and domain-specific skills, we catego-
rized our data into the following themes: 1) student teachers as protectors of domain-
specific knowledge, 2) student teachers finding new ways of reaching their students
using popular tools, and 3) combining generic and domain-specific knowledge.
4.1 Student Teachers as Protectors of Domain-Specific Knowledge
According to the questionnaire, several students believed that they did not learn any-
thing (30%). Interestingly, the same students reported that the sessions using Mine-
craft were fun and that collaboration worked well. However, some students’ percep-
47
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
tion of Minecraft was, “You are learning a computer game and not necessarily a sub-
ject” (questionnaire).
One student (Eva), who had no previous experience in Minecraft, was somewhat
critical at first, but she also identified an area for improvement and a positive experi-
ence gained:
“If you bring Minecraft into the classroom, it’s important to include the curricular
part [domain specific knowledge] [...] to get the curricular learning outcome. Maybe
because when we have so much fun, the fun part takes over. The roleplay [of the polit-
ical process] was kind of, “Okay, done!” in a hurry, and we didn’t bother to put
much effort into it because the building part was so much more fun.” (Excerpt 1:
Interview Eva)
Eva’s statement is representative of the attitude held by many protecting subject
matter practices. She is concerned that the “fun part” (building in Minecraft) might
take over at the expense of developing domain-specific knowledge. Many respondents
shared her opinion. She expressed her feeling that block-building games, through
enacting agency and being engaging and fun, take time away from learning subject
matter knowledge, which is the primary objective of schoolteachers, thereby creating
a dilemma for the teacher. However, one can question whether student teachers are
aware of the pedagogical affordances in Minecraft and related games for training
generic skills [8], and others suggests that digital games are in their infancy and need
more time to mature, which is why we have not yet seen their optimal integration in
formal education [7].
4.2 Student Teachers Finding New Ways of Reaching their Students Using
Popular Tools
The questionnaire results indicate that some student teachers (30%) were skeptical
toward games, stating that games do not belong in schools. While some students
(37%) found Minecraft difficult to use (e.g., encountered technical problems), several
highlighted the opportunities Minecraft gives for engaging students in subject matter
activities: Furthermore, student teachers highlighted: “The possibilities are that you
can vary teaching, and it’s fun for those who have used it [Minecraft] previously.”
Eva’s views from the interview support this point:
“I was very positive coming into this project because there are many, let’s say 11-
year olds, who can relate to Minecraft. And in that way you can reach students who
may think your class is boring … to reach them with other teaching methods. And
Minecraft is something completely different from what we do in school.” (Excerpt 2:
Interview Eva)
Eva points out that Minecraft is popular because children can relate to it via prior
experiences. If this familiarity in using a powerful tool can be transferred to a school
setting, she believes that easily distracted students will be more engaged in learning
activities. Eva also said that using games could lead to new challenges, as the “fun
part” can take over (see Excerpt 1). However, she points out later in the interview that
the most important part of the learning activity is to focus on subject matter, meaning
that the building activity must be integrated to serve teachers’ primary goals.
48
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
The student teachers in our study indicated the need for a toolbox of teaching
methods to reach children and motivate their learning. Such a toolbox must be de-
signed to be both flexible and usable, so that users can apply the tools for teaching
purposes and integrate them in a broad learning context. One such teaching method is
roleplay [18]. Teachers have used roleplay with virtual worlds in different subject
areas (e.g., literature, history, drama) and for professional training (e.g., health care,
therapy, organizational change, crisis management, military training, special educa-
tion) [14], and in collaboration in small and large groups. A well-designed roleplaying
game provides a platform for developing both social skills and domain-specific
knowledge, and when debriefing follows the learning activity, the learning outcome
will be strengthened [14,18].
4.3 Combining Generic and Domain-Specific Knowledge
Our findings thus far indicate that student teachers can be described as protectors of
domain-specific knowledge (see section 4.1). At the same time, students express the
need for a toolbox that both enables them to vary their teaching methods as well as
reach the students through their interests (see section 4.2). The results from the ques-
tionnaire indicated that students gave Minecraft’s learning outcomes a low score and
collaboration and problem solving a high score. This implies a dilemma for teachers,
where a possible solution is to raise awareness of the value of generic skills to student
teachers. Jonas expresses it in the following way:
“[…] this project is about much more than learning skills in Minecraft; it’s about
learning how to give the children a tool for understanding something else [subject
area knowledge].The point is not that we learn Minecraft, nor is the point that the
pupils learn Minecraft. Minecraft can be learned in their spare time. The point is to
have a tool that will allow them to understand something else, for instance political
processes in the Parliament, what the Parliament is, and how it works. That should be
the focus. I am not saying that subject-specific topics were not in focus, only that it
didn’t have to be Minecraft. It could be Legos. But then you have to have tons of Lego
bricks. With Minecraft you don’t need tons of Legos.” (Excerpt 3: Interview Jonas)
Jonas emphasizes that Minecraft is like digital Legos with an unlimited number of
bricks that easily snap and come in different types (colors, hardness, material, etc.).
New building blocks can be created by crafting (graphical composition tables) and by
writing program code. Understanding the specific topic taught (political processes in
parliamentary practice) should be emphasized, according to Jonas, and the interaction
between the two modes, building and roleplaying, should be more seamless.
Both Jonas and Eva noted a disconnect between the two parts of the assignment:
The building of the Parliament and the roleplay of the political decision-making pro-
cess inside it. To develop the script for the roleplay and making both the avatars and
the dialogue credible, domain-specific skills are needed. We found, however, that the
technical aspects of the building process took most of the students’ attention (see Fig.
1 & Fig. 2), and much less work was put into learning about political decision-making
processes and creating a credible roleplay script. As a result, the students did not have
49
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
sufficient time to carry out the roleplay and to acquire the necessary domain-specific
skills.
Fig. 1. A model of parliament building (“Storting”) as seen from outside.
Fig. 2. Parliament building on the inside during roleplaying.
5 Results and Discussion
Our preliminary findings suggest that the student teachers perceive the use of Mine-
craft in their teaching as a possible threat to domain-specific knowledge. At the same
time, they consider generic skills important and see the potential in Minecraft as a
50
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
new way of reaching their students. However, our informants stated that our current
attempts to integrate generic and domain-specific skills practices are insufficient; the
transitions between the two modes are not seamless, which indicates that we need to
work harder to create a complementary/dialectic relationship between the two modes.
We suggest that future research should start with creating a subject-specific context
on which to base Minecraft building activity. This knowledge domain context could
be created by students and teachers in collaboration and precede roleplay and build-
ing. To preserve institutionally established practices, we suggest continuing with the
roleplay by developing the first version of the script. Hopefully, this will encourage
students to carry out a research-like process before they start first round of building in
Minecraft. At the same time, there should be an increased awareness of generic skills
in our communication with student teachers so that these skills are not taken for
granted. In addition to designing and building, Minecraft might be a tool for learning
a range of generic skills like collaboration, problem solving, creativity, and adaptabil-
ity in concert with domain-specific skills. This indicates several areas for further re-
search.
References
1. Binkley, M., Erstad, O., Herman, J., Raizen, S., Ripley, M, Miller-Ricci, M., Rumble, M.:
Defining twenty-first century skills. In: Griffin P., McGaw B., Care E. (eds.) Assessment
and Teaching of 21st Century Skills, pp. 17-66. Springer, Dordrecht (2012).
2. Bos, B., Wilder, L., Cook, M., O'Donnell, R.: Learning mathematics through Minecraft.
Teaching Children Mathematics 21(1), 56-59 (2014).
3. Caldera, Y.M., Culp, A., O'Brien, M., Truglio, R.T., Alvarez, M., Huston, A.C.: Children's
play preferences, construction-play with blocks, and visual-spatial skills: Are they related?
Int. J Behavioral Development 23(4), 855-872 (1999).
4. Canossa, A., Martinez, J.B., Togelius, J.: Give me a reason to dig: Minecraft and psychol-
ogy of motivation. In: Proceedings CIG 2013, pp. 1-8. IEEE Press, Washington, DC
(2013).
5. Carnevale. P.: America and the new economy. Jossey Bass, San Francisco, CA (1991).
6. Dede, C.: Immersive interfaces for engagement and learning. Science, 323 (5910), 66-69
(2009).
7. Dikkers, S.: Teachercraft: How teachers learn to use Minecraft in their classrooms. ETC
Press, Pittsburgh, PA (2015).
8. Eie, S., Mifsud, L., Mørch, A.: Experiences in using Minecraft with student teachers in so-
cial studies: Preliminary reflections. Paper presented at the NERA 2018 Educational Re-
search Conference, Oslo, 7-9 March (2018).
9. Engen, B.K., Giæver, T.H., Mifsud, L., Gudmundsdottir, G.B., Hatlevik, O.E., Tømte, K.:
Digital natives: Digitally competent? In: Proceedings SITE 2014. Association for the Ad-
vancement of Computing in Education. Jacksonville, FL (2014)
10. Fischer, G., Giaccardi, E.: Meta-design: A framework for the future of end-user develop-
ment. In: End User Development, pp. 427-457. Springer, Berlin (2006).
11. Kearns, P.: Review of research: Generic skills for the new economy. Australian National
Training Authority. NCVER Ltd, Kensington Park, Australia (2001).
12. Laurillard, D.: Teaching as a design science: Building pedagogical patterns for learning
and technology. Routledge, Florence, KY (2013).
51
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.
13. Ludvigsen, S.R. (ed.): The school of the future: Renewal of subjects and competences. Of-
ficial Norwegian Report (NOU2915:8), Oslo (2015).
14. Mørch, A.I., Caruso, V., Hartley, M.D., Ludlow, B.L.: Creating contexts for collaborative
learning in a 3D virtual world for distance education. In: Integrating Multi-User Virtual
Environments in Modern Classrooms, pp. 137-164. IGI Global, Hershey, PA (2018).
15. Mørch, A.I., Thomassen, I.: From wooden blocks and Lego to Minecraft: Designing and
playing with blocks to learn in a 3D virtual world. In: 4th CoPDA workshop at NordiCHI
2016, pp. 61-67. CEUR Workshop Proceedings, vol. 1776 (2016).
16. Tamin, R.M. Bernard, R.M, Borokhovski, E., Abrami, P.C., Schmid, R.F.: What forty
years of research says about the impact of technology on learning: A second-order meta-
analysis and validation study. Review of Educational Research 81(1), 4-28 (2011).
17. Vasileiou, V.N., Paraskeva, F.: Teaching role-playing instruction in Second Life: An ex-
ploratory study. Journal of Information, Information Technology, and Organizations, 5,
25-50 (2010).
18. Yardley-Matwiejczuk, K.M. Role Play: Theory and Practice. Sage, London (1997).
52
Proc. of Fifth International Workshop on Cultures of Participation in the Digital Age - CoPDA 2018
Castiglione della Pescaia, Italy, May 29, 2018 (published at http://ceur-ws.org).
Copyright © 2018 for the individual papers by the papers' authors. Copying permitted for
private and academic purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its editors.