Critical Thinking Through Emotional Engagement in Minecraft

• In Event: Poster Session 6
  In Poster Session: Advanced Technologies for Learning SIG Poster Session

Abstract

In this paper, we present how learning occurs through learners’ emotional engagement with the disciplinary content within a digital game-based learning environment. Learners’ emotions become generative resources to engage in learning as they develop relational meanings among concepts, storyline and gameplay. We propose that these emotions are interrelated with learners’ critical thinking on their construction progress and the disciplinary content. Using an ethnographic approach at a mid-high school in Western Canada, we examined learners’ critical thinking while using Minecraft to understand the residential school system in Canada (1879) in relation to the ongoing process of truth and reconciliation. We discuss how these learner creations in Minecraft are emotional designs in practice that may create possibilities and opportunities for public education.

Authors

• Diali Gupta, University of Calgary

• Beaumie Kim, University of Calgary