Revision games and techniques - Mr A Coggins

Here are a few alternative revision ideas from Technology and possible links to other subjects. Please forgive the note style of the information.

Jenga:

This can be a series of questions (like mine) with answers on a range of topics. Idea is students take out a brick and pass it to their friend. The friend reads the question and if they get it correct, keep the brick with them- if they get it wrong they note down the question/topic to revise later, and then place the brick on top. If they knock the tower down on their go they lose the game (as normal!) As mentioned this morning, I would recommend you just add numbers to the bricks as this will allow you to have a range of differentiated questions for different ages and abilities! Learn by my mistake. I have used this as a starter/plenary activity or just as a revision game.

Snakes and Ladders:

This involves generating 100 questions- although I guess you could get the class to generate the questions on a topic or a particular unit of work. Students work their way along the board answering the numbered question which relates to where they want to land- get it wrong they stay where they are, get it correct they move. You can have bonus questions to move up ladders and to stop moving down snakes. Again students are asked to note down or place to the side question they get wrong so you can see areas that they need to revise. It is great to see the students get quite competitive and be learning at the same time!

Guess Who:

The satisfying sound of the Guess who board game! That aside it is a great game for the students to learn/form links between key words. They are required to ask questions with yes/no answers in a bid to find out which key-word their opponent has. I have found that this game works well with the students once they have a solid understanding of the key words- has worked well with the high ability kids. I have attached a copy of my guess who cards which will fit into the game (if you are able to find one!!)

Articulate/Taboo:

Articulate involves students working in teams of at least pairs. They are to describe as many key-words as they can within 1 min. We usually allow one pass per go. They are not allowed to use the key-word/part of the key-word in the description. Again, students are expected to keep a pile of words that they did not understand and then you can set the next activity/homework about looking up definitions of some of those key words. As they become familiar with the game the number of cards they are unable to describe decreases massively. You could just have a handful of keyword cards which are linked to your lesson and use that as a plenary- great way to show progress! Also can get students to create their own cards as well.

example: Keyword: vegetarian - Speaker might say " a person who will not eat meat or fish".

Taboo takes this game a step further and means students are not allowed to say a selection of other words related to the key word. This could work well in many subjects.

example: Vegetarian- Taboo words which are not to be said are "meat", "fish" "allowed"!!

Keywords Noughts and Crosses:

This is a simple way of getting students to learn the spelling of keywords. They select a key word (usually one they haven't been spelling correctly) and play against a partner noting down their keyword instead of a nought or cross! The repetition has worked well with helping the spelling of my year 11. This could be done on mini-whiteboards.

All of the above have been aimed at making the revision fun for the students (and last years year 11 were the first to try this method!) and has also allowed me the opportunity to be creative with teaching techniques and resources which has been enjoyable!

This has obviously been interlinked with targeted revision, student self assessment of knowledge activities and exam question practice. We don't just play games in Technology!!

If you have any questions or any other board games/ideas which you have tried please let me know!!