Moloch's Gauntlet: New Undergraduate Pedagogical Perspectives in Minecraft
Keywords:
Minecraft, Undergraduate Pedagogy, Reframing, Escape RoomAbstract
Video games in higher education settings are generally played to impart and test concepts. The game’s affordances and limitations define what is expected of the student-player. When the game itself is played with, rather than simply played, this reframing deepens student engagement with the learning process. By creating a collaborative learning experience in the form of a Minecraft escape room called Moloch's Gauntlet, we redefine the game's potential as a university-level pedagogical tool. Over the course of this paper we demonstrate that through dismantling the game’s representational aesthetics; selectively concealing and revealing the game’s mechanisms; and approaching Minecraft as an open platform that makes the iterative game design process accessible, classroom use of video games can be reframed from teaching tools to thinking tools.
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