Roblox as an Engaging Education Platform

Roblox will provide educational institutions assisting disadvantaged students free teacher training resources and curriculum in addition to our free platform and toolset. We are also looking to partner with organizations to provide computer and network resources.

We’ll empower underserved students with 21st century skills such as coding, design, and entrepreneurship.

According to an ESA 2017 report “STEM degree holders enjoy higher earnings, regardless of whether they work in STEM or nonSTEM occupations. A STEM degree holder can expect an earnings premium of 12 percent over non-STEM degree holders, holding all other factors constant.”

Roblox offers a free platform and tools coupled with free curriculum and teacher resources which can be used in underserved classrooms and coding clubs to empower students with high-demand STEAM skills in a relatable, tangible way. We’re looking to connect with more educators of disadvantaged students and work with them to deliver a library of free classroom materials designed to teach coding, game design, and entrepreneurship.

Beyond the classroom, students enter a global community of their own peers through which they can continue to learn, create partnerships, and monetize their work. Roblox oversees this community to not only ensure an inclusive environment, but to also provide mentorship with our accelerator and incubator programs.

By providing a free platform, free tools, and free curriculum, students are able to learn highly marketable skills that not only facilitate a better future, but creates opportunities for them today.  

Many students in underserved areas either believe that STEM careers are not for them, or worse, don’t see how they can get started. By showing students that there are actually free opportunities such as Roblox, they are far more likely to embark on a career in STEM.

Using Roblox, educators can tap into a student’s desire to learn by creating their own products and connecting to a larger community of their peers. Educators can also inspire students to forge their own avenues for monetization without waiting for the day they graduate from college.

Our goal is to first serve middle-school students in underserved areas.  

These educators are commonly overworked, underpaid, and have the lowest amount of free resources directed at their student’s age and learning styles. Having so few resources in terms of both time and materials makes it more challenging to start new educational programs even when educators are excited about doing so.

The best known resources typically target either below or above their student’s age range. Roblox is an age appropriate platform where students develop their own code from start-to-finish to create new online experiences.

Students from all ethnic and economic backgrounds need to become excited about STEM careers at an early age. A proven way is to show students how STEM is relatable to their current interests. 

With over 54 million players a month, Roblox is uniquely positioned to inspire kids to code. We have examples in our existing community where students from disadvantaged backgrounds started as players on Roblox, were inspired to learn to code using the platform, and created their own Roblox games. 

These youth earned enough to purchase houses, cars, open their own gaming studios and pay their way through college.

By providing free STEAM based lesson plans and resources for educators, new educational programs will be able to get up and running faster, with higher student success rates. This reduces upfront development costs of time and money for educators, and allows educators to be more confident in the classroom.

Students benefit from being introduced to STEAM principles in an action-based relatable manner. They will also be creating a portfolio of work that can be showcased as they apply to higher education programs in the future.

In the early stages these materials can be hosted in online environment such as GitHub.

Track via personal interactions. - By the end of 2018 we want to work with 10-15 organizations averaging 500 students per organization. An organization we are currently working with is Deaf Kids Code.

Roblox is the most-popular gaming platform to have a proven built-in coding environment. With over 54 million users a month, it is even larger than Minecraft. Students develop games while actually creating  code, not just learning visual scripting. They can publish their games without the need for costly developer accounts or software.

Since developers create their own game from start-to-finish, Roblox is easily paired with a variety of project-based curriculum including those focusing on social awareness. The ability to potentially monetize their creations provides students the chance to raise money for themselves, or for causes they would like to support.

Roblox is free. Many other learning solutions which require a monthly fee, or an upfront cost. This allows organizations to scale without having to depend on students being able to purchase the software or the organization having to front the costs out-of-pocket.

The platform is child-oriented with built-in parental controls and content screening. This creates a safe and affordable place for students to explore and learn.

https://blog.roblox.com/2017/07/national-stem-video-game-challenge-2017/