It is virtually not a panacea for disengagement.

Currently across our school we have around 170 students involved in a Virtual World/Minecraft project and this is due to expand to nearly 350 next year. We often find ourselves discussing the success of team building and engagement these classes have but there are a small number of students where this is not successful and we believe for a number of reasons. From our cohort of 170 students we have 5 who struggle with program as delivered through the Virtual World. These students struggle with social relationships in any environment including a virtual one. While we often find students on the autism spectrum excel in the virtual world. Students we struggle to engage with the virtual World Program are dealing with wide ranging emotional and social issues. Our program relies heavily on team work. They cannot, or do not want to be part of a team. So they act out to avoid work and disrupt their class mates as this gives them a sense of control. Their personal and private world is in turmoil and school is a safe haven from the struggles they face day to day. However their academic performance is a hindrance to their ability to produce work at the expected level and they do not want to appear “dumb’ to their peers. As they are not working at their expected level academically they display volatile behaviors and aggression, and they use these negative behaviors as a deflection to remove the focus on what they are not able to do, understand or participate in. They feel they cannot successfully contribute to a team nor have full control the team or they lack confidence in their ability to complete set tasks and this manifests itself class in disruption and poor social behavior. At times it was impossible to keep these students in the room! We asked ourselves, what can we offer these students that will engage them in a meaningful learning environment and meet their social and emotional needs? We needed to design activities that they would have success in and that would also meet the learning outcomes and content of the class. We found that by removing the pressure of working with a team, and focusing on an individual project they were able to work at their own pace and from a point of personal interest. The only measurement and comparison was a personal one, improving on their own work and meeting personal milestones and goals. They were not feeling like they were being compared to their peers or in fact letting their peers down. Individualized work programs are created for these students who often fall back on creating work using software in which they fell safe such as Word or PowerPoint but the sense of possible failure or again being social reject pushes them away from what is yet another social challenge. Projects focused on research and writing up their findings and presenting these projects using software that they are familiar with. Once we began to implement the individualized programs for these students we noticed most of these students come to class settled and stayed in class, they usually work solidly for the whole session. At the beginning of the session we take time to review where they got to in the last session and what goal they have for themselves in this session. In this time we can identify and assess their mood, they may need some settling time, go to have a drink or even just a quiet space. But soon they settle and get on with the task. Project have included Research a fashion label they like. Include a Historical report including timeline, include images. Chrisi Tambakakis and Gene Geoffrey