In education we all know we don’t have enough time to do this or that. It is the reality we all face in classrooms around the world. Class periods are short. Attention spans are even shorter. Where do we fit in the time to do creative challenges or collaborative projects that require critical thinking?
What is an educator to do?
The Minecraft Education Edition team has a deck of cards to help classrooms find quick and easy, yet powerful learning opportunities, to be infused in the classroom. I am lucky enough to have an actual deck of these challenge cards. I did not want them to be one more thing collecting dust in my office so I am putting them to use to see how helpful they will be with students and teachers.
Even if you don’t have these cards, you can still use them. They are found on the main website blog as well as on their Pinterest page.
I decided to create a new series where I am going to attempt to do all of the cards. I am also hoping my kids will join me from time to time so you can see what students are capable of doing. Even better, as I work through these cards I hope to use them in my trainings so I am teaching what I preach.
For the first challenge we simply pulled out the first card and got started with zero planning or any sort of prep to simulate the time constraints facing many educators.
The Challenge Card
For this challenge I did a treehouse and so did my son.
Check the video to see what is possible in 30 minutes.
I hope you take the challenge. If you do, then please share your build via photos or video. I want to see some amazing treehouses so we can further empower educators and students.
This was great because it was plenty of time to build something while not needing a huge learning curve to get started!
The result of this project is that I
- discovered a new part of my world that I had not yet explored
- built something I never considered building which challenged my thinking
- due to time I knew I had to have something that would work so this constraint forced me to be realistic in what I was creating……
- but the excitement of what I built has my gears turning for a much more massive build that will push my thinking, learning, and skills to be able to complete
- allowed me to learn new things when I watched my son build
End Results of theTreehouse Challenge
Check out this video where I discuss the challenge, some key ideas and more importantly a sped up version of our builds. What I love about this is that you are able to see all the thinking and thought processing that goes into making. Watching my son I see his build is much more elaborate than a simple screenshot posted above. Additionally, I learned some new techniques that I can apply to my own building later.
The real learning is the journey itself!
Video Of Our Builds
Timelapse of build 1 starts at 6:20
Timelapse of build 2 starts at 15:20
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