Is 'Minecraft' a Better Way to Teach Programming in the Age of AI? (edsurge.com) 45
The education-news site EdSurge published "sponsored content" from Minecraft Education this month. "Students light up when they create something meaningful," the article begins. "Self-expression fuels learning, and creativity lies at the heart of the human experience."
But they also argue that "As AI rapidly reshapes software development, computer science education must move beyond syntax drills and algorithmic repetition." Students "must also learn to think systemically..." As AI automates many of the mechanical aspects of programming, the value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic and designing ethical, human-centered solutions... [I]t's critical to offer computer science experiences that foster invention, expression and design. This isn't just an education issue — it's a workforce one. Creativity now ranks among the top skills employers seek, alongside analytical thinking and AI literacy. As automation reshapes the job market, McKinsey estimates up to 375 million workers may need to change occupations by 2030. The takeaway? We need more adaptable, creative thinkers.
Creative coding, where programming becomes a medium for self-expression and innovation, offers a promising solution to this disconnect. By positioning code as a creative tool, educators can tap into students' intrinsic motivation while simultaneously building computational thinking skills. This approach helps students see themselves as creators, not just consumers, of technology. It aligns with digital literacy frameworks that emphasize critical evaluation, meaningful contribution and not just technical skills.
One example of creative coding comes from a curriculum that introduces computer science through game design and storytelling in Minecraft... Developed by Urban Arts in collaboration with Minecraft Education, the program offers middle school teachers professional development, ongoing coaching and a 72-session curriculum built around game-based instruction. Designed for grades 6-8, the project-based program is beginner-friendly; no prior programming experience is required for teachers or students. It blends storytelling, collaborative design and foundational programming skills with a focus on creativity and equity.... Students use Minecraft to build interactive narratives and simulations, developing computational thinking and creative design... Early results are promising: 93 percent of surveyed teachers found the Creative Coders program engaging and effective, noting gains in problem-solving, storytelling and coding, as well as growth in critical thinking, creativity and resilience.
As AI tools like GitHub Copilot become standard in development workflows, the definition of programming proficiency is evolving. Skills like prompt engineering, systems thinking and ethical oversight are rising in importance, precisely what creative coding develops... As AI continues to automate routine tasks, students must be able to guide systems, understand logic and collaborate with intelligent tools. Creative coding introduces these capabilities in ways that are accessible, culturally relevant and engaging for today's learners.
Some background from long-time Slashdot reader theodp: The Urban Arts and Microsoft Creative Coders program touted by EdSurge in its advertorial was funded by a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant that was awarded to Urban Arts in 2023 by the U.S. Education Department "to create an engaging, game-based, middle school CS course using Minecraft tools" for 3,450 middle schoolers (6th-8th grades)" in New York and California (Urban Arts credited Minecraft for helping craft the winning proposal)... New York City is a Minecraft Education believer — the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment recently kicked off summer with the inaugural NYC Video Game Festival, which included the annual citywide Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs Esports Competition in partnership with NYC Public Schools.
But they also argue that "As AI rapidly reshapes software development, computer science education must move beyond syntax drills and algorithmic repetition." Students "must also learn to think systemically..." As AI automates many of the mechanical aspects of programming, the value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic and designing ethical, human-centered solutions... [I]t's critical to offer computer science experiences that foster invention, expression and design. This isn't just an education issue — it's a workforce one. Creativity now ranks among the top skills employers seek, alongside analytical thinking and AI literacy. As automation reshapes the job market, McKinsey estimates up to 375 million workers may need to change occupations by 2030. The takeaway? We need more adaptable, creative thinkers.
Creative coding, where programming becomes a medium for self-expression and innovation, offers a promising solution to this disconnect. By positioning code as a creative tool, educators can tap into students' intrinsic motivation while simultaneously building computational thinking skills. This approach helps students see themselves as creators, not just consumers, of technology. It aligns with digital literacy frameworks that emphasize critical evaluation, meaningful contribution and not just technical skills.
One example of creative coding comes from a curriculum that introduces computer science through game design and storytelling in Minecraft... Developed by Urban Arts in collaboration with Minecraft Education, the program offers middle school teachers professional development, ongoing coaching and a 72-session curriculum built around game-based instruction. Designed for grades 6-8, the project-based program is beginner-friendly; no prior programming experience is required for teachers or students. It blends storytelling, collaborative design and foundational programming skills with a focus on creativity and equity.... Students use Minecraft to build interactive narratives and simulations, developing computational thinking and creative design... Early results are promising: 93 percent of surveyed teachers found the Creative Coders program engaging and effective, noting gains in problem-solving, storytelling and coding, as well as growth in critical thinking, creativity and resilience.
As AI tools like GitHub Copilot become standard in development workflows, the definition of programming proficiency is evolving. Skills like prompt engineering, systems thinking and ethical oversight are rising in importance, precisely what creative coding develops... As AI continues to automate routine tasks, students must be able to guide systems, understand logic and collaborate with intelligent tools. Creative coding introduces these capabilities in ways that are accessible, culturally relevant and engaging for today's learners.
Some background from long-time Slashdot reader theodp: The Urban Arts and Microsoft Creative Coders program touted by EdSurge in its advertorial was funded by a $4 million Education Innovation and Research grant that was awarded to Urban Arts in 2023 by the U.S. Education Department "to create an engaging, game-based, middle school CS course using Minecraft tools" for 3,450 middle schoolers (6th-8th grades)" in New York and California (Urban Arts credited Minecraft for helping craft the winning proposal)... New York City is a Minecraft Education believer — the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment recently kicked off summer with the inaugural NYC Video Game Festival, which included the annual citywide Minecraft Education Battle of the Boroughs Esports Competition in partnership with NYC Public Schools.
Betteridges Law... No. (Score:4, Insightful)
Like a lot of academic subjects, programming can be gamified up to a point, but eventually you have to just sit down and learn stuff properly, practice writing real code, experiment and learn for yourself what certain data and code structures can and can't do, the gotchas, the edge cases etc etc. eg You're not going to learn the use cases and difference of an array, a list and a hash playing with blocks on screen. Ditto the pros and cons of various sorting algorithms. When it comes down to it , real coding is hard despite what various shills promoting their courses would have kids believe.
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My kid learned Python in 5th grade at an after-school program that used Minecraft.
The kids wrote plug-ins to automate and animate stuff.
The students seemed very enthusiastic, but that might be selection bias since less interested kids didn't sign up for the program.
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Indeed. As in any engineering dicipline (and coding is that, even if massively immature at this time), aptitude and genuine enjoyment understanding and doing it is a critical requirement or you will never get good at it. Hence gamification can help on the level that we teach basic writing or basic math. But that is it. Has some value, but the people with that skill level essentially become competent enough to be able to hand a simple picture without having to call a professional. They are not programmers.
My
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Indeed. As in any engineering dicipline (and coding is that, even if massively immature at this time), aptitude and genuine enjoyment understanding and doing it is a critical requirement or you will never get good at it. Hence gamification can help on the level that we teach basic writing or basic math. But that is it. Has some value, but the people with that skill level essentially become competent enough to be able to hand a simple picture without having to call a professional. They are not programmers.
My advice: Teach for the first group and get the second group some light entertainment while you are doing it. Any real effort invested in the second group is simply wasted. There is nothing you can do for them. They do not have it and they cannot get it.
You are so correct. My experience, is that coding requires ability (aptitude) fueled by interest. And the coder's mind works a little bit differently than say, the person who wants to be an MBA.
As someone in the middle, I've watched people who will end up being really good programmers catch an endorphin buzz from solving programming problems. Others who spend their time hardly able to get past whatever incarnation of "Hello World" might be in use.
And it isn't that one group is smart and the other stupid
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And the coder's mind works a little bit differently than say, the person who wants to be an MBA.
Having acquired some experience (unfortunately) with trying to teach some people from that group, I completely agree. Never again. These people are not into understanding things.
It is however, the reason why "Teach all kids to code" edicts aren't all that successful.
Fully agree to that. Obviously, the very idea that you can teach everybody to code is also hugely disrespectful and insulting to those that can learn to do it well. My personal theory is that the MBAs and other "business" idiots feel inferiour a
Re: Betteridges Law... No. (Score:2)
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I would add that a programmer needs curiosity and must like solving puzzles. Otherwise, where is the impetus to *do* it ?
True dat.
The person that gets excited when they solve the puzzle is the programmer. And programming has a lot of little puzzles to fuel that excitement.
If everyone was that way, there would be no need to have it as a required class. They'd all be doing it.
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Lesson/project suggestions (Score:2)
Suggestion: Try Minecraft: Educatiion Edition (you may have to work with your IT/network people for firewall, install, etc.)
https://education.minecraft.ne... [minecraft.net]
If you want to go more 2D graphics, CMU CS Academy (Carnegie Mellon U) has some free browser based tools/programs for Python programming with graphics, a lot like Processing if you're familiar with it. I customize most of the lessons though, as it can be a bit basic/repetitive, but it has a sandbox that you can play with
https://academy.cs.cmu.edu/cou.. [cmu.edu]
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Re: Betteridges Law... No. (Score:2)
Not sure how learning trig etc in maths relates at all to learning to code in a game. Writing a game is not the same as using one
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I couldn't disagree more. I started coding 40 years ago (I was 7 then). Why? I wanted to build a video game of course. I couldn't care less about what a map or a list was back then. But I had the passion to build small (and later less small) video games. When my friends in school were wondering why we were learning cosines and sinuses in Math, I immediately knew I could apply the lesson to draw the shape of a circle (and therefore have my sprite correctly hang at a rope) When we did forces and differential equations in physics, I knew it would help me get the correct speed of a projectile in my game. When we learned matrices, I knew it would help me for 3D. All those lessons were easy to learn for me because I understood what I could use them for. Give the kids the right tools to have fun, and they will learn by themselves without finding anything "hard".
I think you describe in the first part the difference between you and the others. You had the interest, and the aptitude. I'll bet you got an endorphin hit when you figured something out in your programming, and then a big one when something that took a lot of mental work finally did what you were trying to do.
Now things like Minecraft, or even writing AI prompts might get students with casual interest to have a little fun. But with the differing aptitudes plus interest, some will just be there for whate
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"and that we can't teach."
Sure some can. The ability to teach is completely orthogonal to being able to program or any other STEM subject. Otherwise all schools and unis could teach would be liberal arts.
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"and that we can't teach."
Sure some can. The ability to teach is completely orthogonal to being able to program or any other STEM subject. Otherwise all schools and unis could teach would be liberal arts.
Well, that certainly flies in the face of my experience of trying to interest women into STEM careers.
Most have zero interest in them at all.
I do know and have worked with women programmers and engineers and scientists who are top-notch. However, they have a different mindset. As part of the TOSADTWD and other work, I get to talk to them as well. They had a mindset of "This is what I'm going to do, and no one is going to stop me." And trying to convince young women that they want to go into STEM is no
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"Most have zero interest in them at all. "
And what? Most men have zero interest into going into professional childcare. Whats that got to do with teaching? Do you actually read a post before replying to it or will any do so you can offload your POV?
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"Most have zero interest in them at all. "
And what? Most men have zero interest into going into professional childcare. Whats that got to do with teaching? Do you actually read a post before replying to it or will any do so you can offload your POV?
Perhaps I just am sticking with the subject, Perhaps I have decades of experience in this.
Perhaps, I just enjoy pissing you off, that is a bit of fun. I'm an asshole, and don't you ever forget it, Capiche? A veritable plethora of possibilities.
Perhaps you aren't following the conversation. Of course, if you can show me the person who has zero interest, no innate ability, yet an incredible teacher nullifiy that lack of interest, and the person went on to be a successful and happy programmer. Because
Re: Betteridges Law... No. (Score:2)
Lay off the weed mate, it's not doing your brain any favours.
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Indeed. The problem here is that most people have no clue what programming actually does. They thing simplistic business logic is the pinnacle of difficulty. Even specific characteristics of algorithms is just intermediate level, bit far out of reach of most people writing code. So no. If you want to write some simple excel macros or add a counter to your webpage, maybe "AI" can help a lot. But that is to programming as frying an egg is to planning an then executing a high-quality 12 course meal for 500 gue
Re: Betteridges Law... No. (Score:1)
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Non sequitur. I'm saying you can't learn to code properly in a game, I said nothing about not being able to teach it at all.
CS Education (Score:2)
the value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic
CS education has never been about writing perfect code, and it is not going to be about telling stories, although I can see why a journalist or writer might like to think so.
"All you have to do is tell a story to the computer, and it will do what you want." It's the author's version of wanting to program embedded systems in Javascript, because Javascript is what you know.
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Indeed. (Applied) CS has still a long way to go and that way will eventually make it a respected engineering discipline. Before that state is reached (in maybe 50-200 years), it is immature and risky to depend on. LLMs will make that state worse. As an example, before LLMs we had low-skill coders doing a ton of damage. With LLMs we now also get "no-skill" coders that can only make things much _worse_. Engineering is not and never has been about "telling stories". Engineering is about skillfully manipulating
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Tried it, not really helpful. About as helpful as the result of something like "chatgpt, generate the code for a relational database with features on par with Postgres 7.0".
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My students tried "ChatGPT, add to this small, simple, 30 lines game-of-life in Python. Complete failure. I expect "specialist" models may be able to do this miniscule, easy task or not. But the level of complexity at which LLMs do not get it anymore and consitently fail is very low.
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I asked it to help me solve an engineering problem, creating a steel tool with some shape and other properties that can go through 60 meter concrete wall. It was very helpful, but at the end told me to consider the ethical issues of something that can be used as a weapon.
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the value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic
CS education has never been about writing perfect code, and it is not going to be about telling stories, although I can see why a journalist or writer might like to think so.
"All you have to do is tell a story to the computer, and it will do what you want." It's the author's version of wanting to program embedded systems in Javascript, because Javascript is what you know.
I wonder if the article was written by AI. If we were playing buzzword and buzzphrase bingo and taking shots every time a buzzword comes up we'd be pretty smashed by the end of the article. Just a sample:
"Students light up when they create something meaningful," "Self-expression fuels learning, and creativity lies at the heart of the human experience."
"value of CS education is shifting, from writing perfect code to shaping systems, telling stories through logic and designing ethical, human-centered s
Re: CS Education (Score:2)
> the definition of programming proficiency is evolving. Skills like prompt engineering, systems thinking and ethical oversight are rising in importance
Ethical oversight? I'll catch my breath from laughter first. Ethics was arguably the first victim of commercial AI.
Prompt engineering? No.
Systems thinking? No comment.
Get me outta here. This is like trying to teach arithmetic withou
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We are not the target audience for that article. I extracted my own quote which caught my eye for being naive and superficial.
"the definition of programming proficiency is evolving. Skills like prompt engineering, systems thinking and ethical oversight are rising in importance"
Ethical oversight? I'll catch my breath from laughter first. Ethics was arguably the first victim of commercial AI.
Yah, my thoughts as well. We've been shown so far that Ethics has nothing to do with AI. And hard to imagine it ever will. I've been querying with AI about ethics. It is waffling as much as a person trying to deflect. Someone in the loop doesn't like the question.
Prompt engineering? No.
I think we've taken the "move fast and break things" concept about as far as the concept can g
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We are not "in the age of AI"... (Score:3)
We are just at a point where some people try to get rich quick with LLMs. Overall the actual impact and usefulness of LLMs is rather low, and AI in other forms has been available and slowly become bettrer voer 50 years or so.
Eh, no (Score:2)
Another piece of 'AI' marketing (Score:3)
Like all marketing these days, 'AI' appears in this for no other reason than to attract views. The argument has little to do with AI, and if AI wasn't a thing, people would still argue the benefits of Minecraft as a tool to learn programming, in a very similar way. Minecraft isn't any better or worse for this because "we're in the age of AI". Well, actually if we were already fully in an age of AI it would likely have been just as bad as any other method of learning to program, as the kids learning to "program" Minecraft would just have used AI.
None of this matters (Score:2)
I'm in the job market lately - no one is looking for "creativity", at least no one knows how to measure or assess it.
Mostly, you have to do book problems that you probably looked at 10 years ago in college.
AI, again (Score:1)
Labview? (Score:2)
Does Labview qualify as programming? Or for that matter setting up a Delta-V DCS on a chemical plant. Or are things like that too high-level to qualify?
No (Score:2)
The answer is no, and stop trying to teach kids how to program until you can effectively teach them English and math. Thank you.
No. (Score:1)