Today was our first meeting of Minecraft Club For Teachers facilitated by some of our grade 4 students at lunch time. The idea to have students run the club is due to the fact that from my experience, students are the experts when it comes to playing Minecraft. My specialty is finding the curriculum connections and facilitating the collaboration piece. As well, I wanted some younger students to develop leadership skills. To ensure a gender balance I picked one female and one male student but as it turns out the interest grew and we have approximately six student facilitators.
The plan is to meet approximately once a month on Wednesday which seems to be the day that works for most of the staff that were present at the meeting today. Meetings are very relaxed and informal with no experience required. We started today with exploring the tutorial world in MinecraftEdu (which I recommend as a starting point even with students, as not all students have experience with Minecraft). As well, teachers got excited (like students) with the ability to collaborate together in a shared space. As teachers worked I shared some tips and experiences that I have encountered over the last few years but mostly today was just about play!
Play and PD are probably one of the most successful ways to get teachers on board with new tools. I am a big believer that teachers need to experience what our students would go through in order to gain an appreciation, as well as “buy in,” of new technology or tools. My favourite moment came when one of the students said: “Miss…this is so fun teaching teachers. I love it…”. It was such a powerful teaching moment and made me realize that power shift that was occurring in having students teach the staff. That is exactly the kind of classroom and educational environment I want to work and teach in. It is also the way, I believe, that change can occur with professional development to make it more meaningful and create systemic change in our educational system. If we want to create authentic learning communities than we need to become comfortable learning with and from our students. I am looking forward to next month with the hope of seeing even more staff present now that the word is out!