Esports Spotlight: Prospects are set to soar in Gold Rush Make and Model

Today our #MinecraftEdu #Esports Spotlight explores our #MakeAndModel Gold Rush world. Like the other worlds in the Make and Model genre, it promotes the higher order cognitive skills as advocated by Bloom and others; creative thinking, problem solving and reasoning in addition to enabling students to develop a range of 21st Century skills such as effective communication, negotiation, active listening, leadership, collaboration and dynamic, responsive decision-making. Moreover, it enables students to develop purposeful, focused reflection skills, providing opportunities to reflect upon both their own thinking and actions, as well as reflecting on the whole team’s performance and making vital connections between both. This growing understanding of how the actions of the individual play out in the wider success of the whole team is a fundamental, but largely under-practiced skill required for success in 21st Century workplaces.

The Make and Model Gold Rush map provides all of these opportunities for complex skill development. It is based on a 19th century American Gold Rush town, although it has broad similarities with many countries whose early economies were established on the basis of precious metals and gems. This theme can tie into a number of curricular areas including history, economic development and trade, urban development and sprawl, as well as areas of science that explore metals, how they form, and how they are recovered today compared to in the 19th century. Beyond the curricular links, this theme provides and immersive and inspiring backdrop for students to building and create almost anything they can imagine. Our instructional video below takes educators through basic game-play and set up.

Gold Rush Make and Model Instructional video for educators

As shown by a recent #MinecraftEdu #Esports #MakeAndModel competition run by Curro Schools in South Africa using our Pirate Cove world, the opportunities for skill development are innumerable. Notable discussions from the commentators, the judging panel and spectators on social media illustrate the ways in which students were engages in high-level planning, negotiation and collaboration, all the while they were undertaking different roles under string leadership from their team captains, who were continually observing the builds, reshaping the design needs accordingly, making fast-paced decisions and communicating all of this to their team mates under a tight time pressure. In addition, the students themselves shared how this esports competition has been a vital life-line to them during lockdown, enabling them to form new friendships, grow their social network and have playful purpose in learning new things and deepening knowledge, as shown by the tweets below.

Tweets from the Curro Schools Minecraft Edu Esports Make and Model Championships finals.

You can download the seven MinecraftEdu Esports Make and Model worlds here, along with the full educator framework and playbooks. These worlds are accompanied by lesson plans available on the Minecraft Education Edition library.