5 ready-to-teach gamified lessons - Part 1
Thomas Courtley
Education Specialist
Engage your students with something different from a quiz or a poll. There are many other possibilities. In this article we show you how learning efficiency, knowledge retention & gamification go hand in hand.
Trivial Pursuit
This game uses a spinner and other components. Students have to answer questions about specific (in this case historical) topics. The spinner determines which questions and colours students must answer and which coloured circle they have to move. Each question answered correctly results in moving a coloured circle to the purple box. The first one to move all 3 coloured circles into a purple box is the winner.
Since the spinner randomly determines the colour, a student can land on the same colour more than once and still has to answer the question. This also means they can lose a turn.
Checkers
LessonUp’s Checkers is played on a small board (8x8). Students test their knowledge of well-known historical figures.
The worded squares represent historical periods in which the figures played a fundamental role. Two students choose to play as either red or purple, and need to match the historical figures to the correct period of time on the other side of the board.
If a student captures an opponent's checker, he must explain who that historical figure is, and which period he/she is associated with. The lesson, including instructions, can be found via the demo below.
Connecting the dots
In this short game, students are asked to place hotspots number 1 and 2 on two different images. They can try to describe, for 1 point each time (2 points in total), what they see in the 2 images. Finally, they can try explain the connection between the images for 2 points. The game is over when, according to the students, all connections have been made. They can now count which player gained the most points.
Memory+
We all know a version of the Memory game, but LessonUp created a more challenging version. Students click on two 'cards' (here: created with hotspots). They are challenged to find as many correct combinations as possible, first by connecting dates to images, and then by matching them to the correct event (indicated in one of the purple circles). The winner is the student with the most correct combinations!
Quiz word search
A classic word search. But of course... with LessonUp it’s not just about crossing out the words. First of all students are challenged to figure out the correct word based on the provided description. The number that follows the description indicates the number of letters in the word. Once the word has been guessed, students can move the targets one by one, and place them on top of the hidden answer. The word search itself is an image created through an online word search maker.
The demo games shown in this article are tailored for a history lesson, but you can easily change the subject matter to whatever topic you prefer. Most of these games can be performed independently by your students: in pairs of 2 or 3.
Students keep score and note the winners of each game. This creates some healthy competition and fun within the group. However, the main focus is for students to assess what they know, and reflect on their learning.
Interested in more? Check out gamification in LessonUp - Part 2
