The teacher's experience when engaged in Minecraft - A research collaboration on practice change in an Norwegian classroom.

As part of a formative intervention study (Engeström, Sannino, & Virkkunen, 2014) involving a research collaboration with two primary school teachers, the educational possibilities in mathematics of the digital game Minecraft were explored (Jarvoll, 2018). The teachers motive for joining the intervention was to expand their practice of using Minecraft. The collaboration lasted 1.5 years. The special interest in this article is one of the teacher’s involvement in Minecraft alongside his 27 students, as driven by the following research question: What is the experience of the teacher when engaged in Minecraft with the students? Minecraft has gained some popularity in schools and is used as an educational tool in various countries and subjects and at different grade levels (Baek et al., 2020). The Norwegian Media Authority reports that Minecraft is one of the most popular digital games for children aged 11-12 (2020). Other sources reports that Minecraft is a popular digital game for all age groups (Hewett et al., 2020). The teacher in question was interviewed after a specific maths lesson in which an educational version of Minecraft was employed and his responses analysed using the constant comparative method (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). The teacher explained that it was more meaningful to play the game himself than to just observe his students completing different mathematical tasks without him. With previous experience of the commercial edition of Minecraft, the teacher appreciated the educational opportunities that this version offered and the possibility of controlling student engagement with maths during the lessons. The findings may be of interest for several reasons and raise a number of points connected to teachers competence in different digital tools. The study was developed with inspiration from the Change Laboratory intervention (Virkkunen & Newnham, 2013), and the cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT: Engeström, 2015) is used as its theoretical framework. References Baek, Y., Min, E., & Yun, S. (2020). Mining Educational Implications of Minecraft. Computers in the Schools, 37(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/07380569.2020.1719802 Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2008). Basics of qualitative research. Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.). SAGE. Engeström, Y. (2015). Learning by expanding. An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. Engeström, Y., Sannino, A., & Virkkunen, J. (2014). On the methodological demands of formative interventions. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 12(2), 118-128. Hewett, K. J. E., Zeng, G., & Pletcher, B. C. (2020). The Acquisition of 21st-Century Skills Through Video Games: Minecraft Design Process Models and Their Web of Class Roles. Simulation & gaming, 51(3), 336-364. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878120904976 Jarvoll, A. B. (2018). “I’ll have everything in diamonds!”: Students’ experiences with Minecraft at school. Studia Paedagogica, 23(4), 67-89. https://doi.org/10.5817/sp2018-4-4 Norwegian Media Authority. (2020). Foreldre og medier 2020. En kartlegging av foreldrenes erfaringer med 1-17-åringenes digitale medievaner. Retrieved from https://www.medietilsynet.no/globalassets/publikasjoner/barn-og-medier-undersokelser/2020/201015-foreldre-og-medier-2020-hovedrapport-med-engelsk-summary.pdf Virkkunen, J., & Newnham, D. S. (2013). The Change Laboratory. A tool for collaborative development of work and education. Sense Publishers.