Understanding blended mentorship in Minecraft: Scaling computer science expertise across distances

A critical barrier in providing computer science learning opportunities to all is the dearth of professionals who have the expertise to teach computer science. Blended learning approaches have the potential to reduce this barrier by facilitating the distribution of expertise across distances. In this poster we present our approach to understanding how to design blended learning models for the informal space that take advantage of the expertise of adult mentors and computer science experts. Our theoretical framing is based on Nacu et al. (2014) adult mentor roles, which suggest that adults play different roles (e.g., encourager, monitor, broker) to support students learning. We use Minecraft, a popular, 3D, online, multiplayer game, as our study context. The poster presents two studies that investigate ways of facilitating mentorship in a blended learning environment to teach computational thinking. Study 1 focuses on documenting the roles mentors play while facilitating a computer science-related Minecraft workshop with middle school students. Study 2 focuses on understanding how these roles are modified when online and in person mentors work together to facilitate a computational learning opportunity. Our initial findings suggest that defining a scalable model to support blended learning models in informal spaces requires a variety of mentor roles. Additionally, when coordinating mentorship across mediums, gaps in student support can arise when there is a lack of (a) explicit strategies of communication in place between in-person and online mentors; and (b) clearly defined roles assigned to mentors.