By Nicholas Ciarciaglini
The file of Introduction, Rationale, & Media Description:
Introduction:
This project will be done in Minecraft, students will pick a place to explore to recreate the place in Minecraft. The students will first explore and research about their place, then after they explore and research the place. They will plan on how they will build their place, and what scale they can use to recreate it. After, all those steps students will discuss how much will it cost to create the building or room.
Rationale:
When developing this multi-unit plan, I came back to a question, that everyone asked in a math class, “Where/when will I use this?”. In Placed–based education, by Gregory A. Smith states, “A third approach to place-based education involves engaging students in the identification of school or community issues that they would like to investigate and address.” (Smith 2002, p. 589). What Smith, wrote “issues”, I chose to address mathematics about the structures of the place. When I was choosing what place to choose for this plan, I didn’t choose a single place I decided, to give the choice of what place they can do, in my experience not choosing place that does not interest the student this will not engage in building the structure in Minecraft. Incorporating money into this project is important because, not only the students will be creating the building in Minecraft, they will be also seeing the cost of their recreation.
Media Description & Rationale:
Using Minecraft, for this project when you have challenged students, it helps them exhibit the mathematical concepts. In the study, “Using Minecraft in education: A qualitative study on benefits and challenges of game-based education”, by Anton Petrov, focuses on how it helps students with Learning Disabilities (LD) (Petrov, 2014, p. 15). In the study, the author states “Minecraft is an open world, exploration and building game, written in Java and released in 2011 for PC by a Swedish company Mojang” (Petrov, 2014, p. 20). Minecraft was not originally made for education, but it was created in a way to use it in a classroom (Petrov, 2014, p. 20). Using this game, students that are using servers are more acceptant to their peers that are academically challenged or with LD (Petrov, 2014, pp. 25 – 26). This is why I chose to use Minecraft; this allows challenged or LD students to grasp at the mathematical concepts of the curriculum.
To prepare teachers, with using Minecraft. In the article, “Participatory culture as professional development: Preparing teachers to use Minecraft in the classroom”, by Kuhn & Stevens the authors states, “This diversification of learning and content is a hallmark of learning within the literacy of games and is what is needed in preparing teachers to use games for learning” (Kuhn & Stevens, 2017, p. 760). Immersing yourself in the literacy of Minecraft, so that you know what you are looking for in a project. You also need this to help students if they are having trouble representing their Minecraft project. This is important to create an inclusive classroom.
In this multi-unit project for Workplace and Apprenticeship Math 20, this project will be done in two programs: Minecraft Education Edition and PowerPoint (or Slides). Using Game-based learning (GBL), GBL is teaching that introduces video games, it defines to a type of game that is related to the lesson outcomes (Plass et al., 2015, p. 259). Using Minecraft as a learning medium versus a more conventional way, which would include researching, taking pictures or videos and doing all the calculations about their place and presenting their findings. Doing in this way, it will engage students to pay attention to details that they would not pay attention to, like details in the wall. This will allow the students to get creative in representing a place. Using games to teach, is beneficial to students by allowing students just play the game. In “Digital game-based pedagogies: Developing teaching strategies for game-based learning.” by Kuhn, Jeff and Stevens, Vance the authors states, “…offering the game to students and stepping back in order to let learning through gameplay take place” (Kuhn & Stevens, 2017, p. 2). This will allow the students to use problem solving skills, to develop their mathematical calculations. These things will help students use their skills in real life situations.
Reflection on Making:
In the start, the idea came from one of my ideas back in high school, that I wanted to make Archbishop M.C. O’Neil Catholic High School in Minecraft. This is what this was based on, in trying to create the high school, I did not start with a plan and a scale, I just went into it. This was a challenge and that is why it takes two stages to complete before their recreation, this will make the students think about how to recreate it. The next step was a new step, that I wanted to have a budget section, so I made it. Some challenges that I faced with incorporating a budget, was the cost of blocks there are so many costs to figure out, so that is why the students will use the same material as their structure. Why I said groups do buildings and why partners and individuals do just one room is because you can split up the work in a group and as partners and individuals because doing a room is more manageable.
In creating this project, here are some things I learned about the process. Doing lesson plans is a long process, there are a lot of details that you need to create one lesson plan, it got easier when I was continuing from a previous lesson. Also, when creating the rubric, it was easier to do it when I made it into sections rather than one section cramming all relevant information, also learned that detailing what I expect does not help the students think.
This is what I’ve learned about this process.
Buildings vs. Room
| Reason Number | Buildings | Rooms |
| Question | Why groups do buildings: | Why individuals/partners do rooms: |
| 1. | If groups of students do rooms, then they will do their project too quickly. | If individuals/partners do buildings, then they will not get done their project. |
| 2. | If groups of students do rooms, then some will not do work or work on it together (Ex. The volume then I cannot decipher who did what) | If individuals/partners do buildings, then they could get overwhelmed with all the rooms they need to do. |
| 3. | If groups of students do building, then they can split up each room (Ex. Bob does the main entrance) | If partners do rooms, then they can split up each side of the room (Ex. Steve does the floor and roof) (if they are in partners). If individuals do rooms, then it is easier to manage by themselves. |
Reasons for having groups do buildings and individuals/partners do rooms
Context & Learning Objectives:
Context:
WA 10:
TBD (Work in progress)
WA 20:
In grade 11 Workplace Math, students learn about surface area, volume, scale, financial services, and personal budget. So, students will plan, research, and reconstruct an actual building (or room). Students will record and do the math to the reconstruction of their place.
WA 30:
TBD (Work in progress)
Learning Objectives:
WA 10:
TBD (Work in progress)
WA 20:
WA 20.3 – Extend and apply understanding of surface area, volume, and capacity using concrete and pictorial models and symbolic representations (SI or imperial units of measurement).
WA 20.8 – Demonstrate understanding of financial institution services used to access and manage personal finances, including credit options.
WA 20.10 – Extend and apply proportional thinking to solve problems that involve unit analysis and scale.
WA 30:
TBD (Work in progress)
Example:
Minecraft example
Everything:
In this section, you can download all lesson plans, worksheets, and rubrics. For Teacher’s use ONLY.
WA 10
TBD. (Work in progress)
WA 20:
WA 30:
TBD. (Work in progress)
Assessments:
WA 10:
TBD (Work in progress)
WA 20:
Each individual lesson plan has a formative and summative assessment. The “formative assessment” assesses a student’s participation. The “summative assessment” assesses the student’s understanding of math concepts.
WA 30:
TBD (Work in progress)
Lesson Plans:
In this section, here are all the lesson plans that teachers should follow in order to complete this project. For Teacher’s use ONLY.
WA 10:
TBD. (Work in progress)
WA 20:
Zip File:
| Lesson Number | Lesson Plan Title | Class(es) [Total] |
| 1 | Start-up & Planning Stage of your Place | Two to Three [2-3] |
| 2 | Finding Surface Area & Volume of your Place | One [3-4] |
| 3 | Research the Cost, Materials, & Loans of your Place | Three to Five [6-9] |
| 4 | Recreating your Place in Minecraft | Four to Five [10-14] |
| 5 | Creating the Presentation about your Place & Reflection | One to Two [11-16] |
Individual Lessons:
WA 30:
TBD. (Work in progress)
Worksheets:
In this section, these are the worksheets that are needed for students to complete.
- Individuals: Sections that say, individuals, for students that want to be by themselves.
- Groups: Sections that say, groups, for students that want to be in a group or partners.
- Everyone: Sections that say, everyone, to be done by every student.
WA 10:
TBD. (Work in progress)
WA 20:
Zip File:
Individuals:
Groups/Partners
Everyone
WA 30:
TBD (Work in Progress)
Rubrics:
This is how I will evaluate the student’s work (Minecraft reconstruction, Mathematical work, & Presentation).
WA 10:
TBD (Work in progress)
WA 20:
WA 30:
TBD (Work in progress)
WA 20: Materials, Cost, & Loans:
In this section, here are some resources, for students to find materials, the cost of materials, and loans. What is in each section:
- Materials & Costs: In this section, students can use these sites (companies) to find their materials and their costs.
- Loans: In this section, students can use these banks or credit unions to create a loan payment strategy.
Materials & Costs
Loans:
Banks:
Credit Unions:
References:
Hébert, C., & Jenson, J. (2019). Digital game-based pedagogies: Developing teaching strategies for game-based learning. Journal of Interactive Technology and Pedagogy, 15, 1-18.
Kuhn, J., & Stevens, V. (2017). Participatory culture as professional development: Preparing teachers to use Minecraft in the classroom. Tesol Journal, 8(4), 753-767.
Petrov, A. (2014). Using Minecraft in education: A qualitative study on benefits and challenges of game-based education.
Plass, J. L., Homer, B. D., & Kinzer, C. K. (2015). Foundations of game-based learning. Educational Psychologist, 50(4), 258-283.
Smith, G. A. (2002). Place-based education: Learning to be where we are. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(8), 584-594.
Additional Resources:
Additional resources are for students to have tutorials about Minecraft and how to use Microsoft Word & Google Docs to do their plans.
Minecraft:
This is for students to learn how to use Minecraft EE. What is in this section:
- How to represent non-square shapes: This is for students that have circular or triangular structures.
- How to add Skin and Resource Packs into Minecraft EE: This is for students to import Minecraft skins, and texture packs into Minecraft EE.
How to represent non-square shapes (like triangles, and circles):
How to add resource packs to Minecraft:
Microsoft Word & Google Docs Tutorials:
In this section, I put in tutorials about how students can use Microsoft Word & Google Docs to type up their Minecraft Plans. What is in this section:
- How to create shapes: In this section, is for students to show them, how to create shapes: lines, circles, triangles, squares, & cubes.
- How to insert equations: In this section, is for students to show them, how to use equations: how to start an equation, how to insert symbols (like parallel lines (∥), and theta(ϑ)) & operators (like times (“*” or “✕”) and division (like “/” or “÷”).
- How to convert Microsoft Word to Google Docs: In this section shows the students & teachers how to convert a Word document into a Doc document.