3 Important Skills Taught in Minecraft!
Purpose, Autonomy, and Mastery
How do we help our children become engaged learners? Daniel Pink's book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, gives us some ideas. Pink believes there are three essential steps in successful learning experiences. It is interesting to look at Minecraft through this lens.
Purpose: In Minecraft, each child develops their own goals and purpose. In many areas of education, this doesn't happen, and in life right now, our autonomy and purpose have been radically affected by the pandemic. In the world of Minecraft, our children have control.
Autonomy: Each child sets up their own universe. They decide what to build and how to put everything together.
Mastery: In many areas of life, mastery can be vague. We learn to speak a second language a bit better, and we learn to deepen our understanding of geometry. Having clear indicators of our progress REALLY helps us. In Minecraft, mastery is evident: your roller coaster works, your lights turn on and off. Mastery is the turning point where you feel your progress. You develop the confidence and desire to create new and harder goals.
Currently, our Minecraft classes are very popular, engaging, and a great social outlet during the pandemic. If you'd like to sign up your child, please click on the links below. If you prefer to register by phone, don't hesitate to call our office at (212) 245-0444.
Online Classes for Pre-Kindergarten, Mommy & Me Little Coders
Online Classes for 1st-2nd Grade Students, Minecraft & Coding
Online Classes for Kindergarteners, Mommy & Me Little Coders
Online Classes for 3rd-6th, Robotics, Minecraft, Coding, Robotics
I am so excited about our Facebook Live on Friday at 10 AM. I'll be speaking with my colleague Dr. Fred Martin. Fred and I worked closely with the late Dr. Seymour Papert, largely known as the father of constructivism in technology education. Twenty Things To Do with a Computer is a short paper written by Seymour Papert and Cynthia Solomon in 1971. This was when it was novel to use a Teletype machine to type at a computer and have it respond with more text on a roll of paper. Yet Papert and Solomon describe a wonderful set of activities in which children create robotic creatures with goal-seeking behaviors, turtles that make drawings on the screen, and mechanisms that fling a yoyo. Fifty years after the paper this written, we’ll discuss how its vision has transformed our world and still guides us forward.
Fred is a truly brilliant teacher and has wonderful ideas for technology learning and teaching with our children. Please come join us!