In planning my calendar each semester, I schedule time for in-class exam review. I find that even a short review session can relieve some of the anxiety students face come test time. In addition, it's a chance for me to sneak in a low-risk assessment before the "real thing." Instead of repeating my lecture material, I try to create activities that push the students to be active in their learning.
In cases where students need to master new terminology for an exam, I create custom Bingo cards at Print-Bingo.com. With 24 terms (plus the FREE center square), Print-Bingo will generate 10 unique cards in a downloadable .pdf file. For a large class, I either generate multiple sets or just print several copies of one set ... I'm okay with multiple winners. Students choose a card and they have 5 minutes to look over the terms and ask questions.
When we're ready to play, I read one definition at a time in random order, and the students have to cross-out the corresponding term on their Bingo cards. When a student gets BINGO, I give them the chance to drop one 2-point question on the exam. We play until roughly half the class wins.
For the students who struggle to match definitions to the terms, the game is a wake-up call. For me, it helps identify students who might need some extra help or even a referral to the Learning Commons. Yes, there's an element of chance involved in winning (which card you pick), but the risk and the reward are so small that students don't complain.
If you'd like to talk more about using games for test review, visit the CTE or contact Meg Elias at clarkm1@star.lcc.edu.
Have you been thinking about incorporating games into your learning activities? The world of online educational games is immense, and goes beyond simple multiple choice "quiz show" type interactions. GeoGuessr is a tool that I use in my online sections of BIOL 120, an Environmental Science class that fulfills CORE and MTA for non-science majors.
GeoGuessr was created in 2013 by programmer Anton Wallen. It challenges the user to guess the location based only on a random Google Street View. It may sound easy, but remember that there are many mapped roads that have only trees and topography as clues. Google also blurs out license plates and phone numbers, so no help there. Take a look at the picture below...where do you think you are? This is a screenshot from the North American version of the game, so that should narrow it down a bit.
I scored high by picking the middle of Kansas for this picture, which was only 222 miles from the actual location in Nebraska.
I present a link to this game to my online students and they report their scores (a total of five rounds) to a discussion board. It's easy to see the relevance in a unit on Ecology or Agriculture, but there are other ways to use it in non-science classes. There's a Famous Places version that could be used in Art or History, and even a version that's entirely within Paris! The game could be followed up with questions such as:
- How did you make your guess? What clues did you use?
- Were you misled by any of the things that you saw?
- Are there any assumptions you made that skewed your answers?
- (For a math class) Can you figure out the model the programmers used to calculate your score?
For more challenging play, try the World Version. Can you guess the correct location of the view below?
(It's southern Argentina)
If you want to explore ways to add games into your curriculum, visit us in the CTE or email Meg Elias at clarkm1@star.lcc.edu.
