Using Games to Teach Tips
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People agree games are a great way to review a topic, but what about using games to teach your core educational principals? Absolutely! Here are some tips to accomplish this.
Some Quick Tips:
- Define your objective. Make a list of the key teaching points you want to cover.
- Create questions based on your key points.
- Be creative. Questions do not specifically have to cover a topic, they can be used simply as a stepping stone to what you want to teach.
- Remember, your key objective is to teach a topic, you are using “fun” to help you achieve your primary objective which is educational.
- Use a game that allows the use of summary points that will allow you to review content after each question.
- Slow down the game. Your objective is different than a TV game show. Theirs is to entertain, yours is to educate. On a TV game show in a 30 minute period they may play 3-4 rounds. In the classroom it may take 45 minutes of longer for one game.
- Read each question prior to answering.
- Your concern should be more on the content delivery than who wins or looses. The game simply is a different medium to deliver your material.
- Games do not always have to be long. A short game of 4-6 questions, can be a great way to review the key points of a talk or use as a warm up for a presentation.
Popular Game Show Software
My Quiz Show™ (Jeopardy® style game) allows for questions from 10-26, and for multiple question formats, like true-false, open ended, multiple choice, questions based on images or video.
My Billionaire Game™ (Who Wants to be a Millionaire style game) uses fewer questions, from 1-15 questions, and is designed for four multiple choice answers.
Summary Points
Both of these games allow the use of summary points which is key to reinforcing your key objectives. |
