Crafting Worldly Spaces: The Role of the Educator in Shaping Student Agency in 'Minecraft'

The use of video games in schools is not new. However, classroom use of video games may be poised for a dramatic shift as billion dollar video game franchises such as "Assassin's Creed" and "Minecraft" continue to invest in features aimed at facilitating the use of these games for education (Egbert & Borysenko, 2018; Porter, 2018). A number of factors have contributed to the rise of classroom use of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games. These include increasing cultural acceptance of video games as a legitimate art form (Tavinor, 2011), a growing body of literature on the benefits of digital game-based learning (DGBL) (Coleman & Money, 2019), and desire of game developers to capture education dollars (Jowitt, 2016). Research on COTS games in the classroom has tended to focus on whether games can improve knowledge and skill acquisition (Van Eck, 2006). Much less attention has been given to the question of student agency in COTS games. In particular, while there has been some acknowledgement that educators play a role in determining student agency outcomes in games (Lopez Lopez et al., 2019; Seventko et al., 2017), the specific ways in which educators influence student agency in games has been undertheorized. To better understand the role of educators in shaping student agency in COTS games, this paper analyzes classroom use of "Minecraft" as a case study.