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Hasti Public School and Junior College, Dondaicha.

blog 196                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Game-based review sessions can increase student engagement—and are backed by learning science.

In fact, using games such as Pictionary, charades, and even Catch Phrase in your classroom could be one of the most innovative and neurologically appropriate learning tools you utilize all year, and also the most fun your kids ever have reviewing.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND GAME-BASED LEARNING

Games like these require students to engage in what psychologists call “elaborative rehearsal,” a broad term referring to the process whereby the learner establishes a cognitive relationship between novel and existing knowledge in order to establish deeper connections and thus move novel stimuli to long-term memory. Here’s how it works.

There is robust connection between the use of drawing and learning.  this is because “drawing improves memory by encouraging a seamless integration of semantic, visual, and motor aspects of a memory trace.” Van Meter echoes the cognitive power of drawing, which “requires non-verbal representation modalities and thus requires cognitive integration.”

Depth of processing: Pictionary and charades require that thing that we all strive for—critical thinking—in a way that is accessible, engaging, and fun. In the context of playing games like Pictionary or charades, students are prompted with a clue in the form of a term, concept, phenomenon, or theory. As they decide how to get their teammates to guess the clue, they engage in deep processing. Depth of processing refers to the extent to which a stimulus is processed—that is, to what extent is the meaning or importance of a thing processed. In order to participate in the game, they are required to engage in deep processing and to make connections between the essence of the clue and existing knowledge.

Perhaps more important, they have to consider shared existing knowledge of their classmates and ask themselves, “What is the essence of this clue? What can it be broken down to so that I can make it analogous to existing knowledge of my peers?”

For example, while playing Pictionary, a student in my psychology class drew a rudimentary head and face with a speech bubble, drew an arrow to the head, and then crossed out the speech bubble. Their teammates successfully identified the clue as “localization of function,” since they were able to make a connection between their prior knowledge of this research and the drawing on the board.

Cognitive effort and distinctiveness: The above example illustrates another component of elaborative rehearsal, cognitive effort. The student who is acting or drawing must engage in serious cognitive effort. The students who are guessing must also have full cognitive effort, scanning their brains for prior knowledge and making constant connections between that prior knowledge and what they see illustrated or acted out by the student.

These games also create distinctiveness for the experience and information. All these elements of elaborative rehearsal combine to create a review activity that not only is more engaging than your standard learning experience but also leverages what we know about the science of learning, memory, and the power of deep processing to move stimuli into long-term memory.

A PICTIONARY EXAMPLE

In  history class, while  reviewing concepts related to the Cold War within a thematic unit on oppression. A student was given the clue “Guatemala intervention” during a game of Pictionary. The student took 10 seconds to think (our allotted “think time”) and then stepped to the whiteboard with a smile on their face. They immediately started drawing a bunch of bananas; then next to that they drew a collection of dollar signs and rudimentary guns with arrows going to their final illustration of what was meant to be Central America. Halfway into this final illustration a student blurted out, “Guatemala intervention!”

Consider the cognitive demands on both the drawing student and their teammates in this situation. The artist needs to consider how they can symbolically represent something as complex as the Guatemala intervention. Their teammates are scanning their brains for knowledge and information that would fit the symbols on the board. They have to consistently ask themselves, “How do these images fit what I know?” Through that process, they are not only rehearsing knowledge about the specific clue but instead scanning their entire breadth of knowledge to find what could possibly fit.

Of course, some students in the room lack prior knowledge that would allow them to make a correct guess. They are relearning this information in an emotionally and intellectually engaging way. This will increase their ability to move this information to long-term memory. After every clue, we always debrief quickly. If the team got it right, I ask the student, “Why did you draw what you did?” and then will ask the student who guessed correctly, “How did you know it was the Guatemala intervention?”

Sometimes, the clock hits zero and there are no correct guesses. In this case, a student will inevitably blurt out, “You should have drawn bananas! The United Fruit company!” If students are clueless as to what could have been drawn as a clue, I review the event, phenomenon, or concept and we brainstorm how it could be represented metaphorically or symbolically.

A review session is only as good as its impact on student learning and understanding. By requiring students to represent ideas, concepts, theories, and phenomena symbolically as well as metaphorically, we require them to engage in elaborative rehearsal and deep learning. We also know that information is more readily remembered when it is linked with emotion, and I can assure you that the games do get emotional in the best way possible.

So if you want to infuse your lessons with deep cognitive processing, engagement, and fun, put down those review guides and pick up a Pictionary pen!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     *                                                                                                                                                                                                              *5 Vocabulary Games That Build Content Knowledge

Engaging games support student understanding of subject-specific vocabulary and help ensure retention of content knowledge.

Subject-specific vocabulary goes hand-in-hand with a deep and meaningful knowledge of content. It allows us to engage with that subject, unlocks understanding, and promotes clear and precise communication.

At the end of a topic or unit of work, encourage  students to play with the words they’ve learned. I use five different word-association games that get students to recall, describe, explain, listen, and verbalize the subject-specific vocabulary from that topic or unit of work. In my experience, the lighthearted nature of these games provides students with a fun, safe, and low-stakes environment where they feel more confident to just have a go.

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1. FROM A TO Z

How it works: For this five-to-eight-minute game, students work in small groups (two to four) and have to write down a word related to a topic for every letter of the alphabet. For example, if the topic is cells, “A” might be “apoptosis,” “B” might be “binary fission,” “C” might be “cytoplasm,” and so on. For many topics, students might struggle to find a word for every letter (and sometimes you will too). You can support them and/or allow them to get more abstract or silly.

This is great as a starter activity for a lesson that falls at the end of the topic. I like to keep it visible and accessible throughout the lesson for students to add to if inspiration strikes them later on.

2. ARTICULATE

Based on the popular board game Articulate, this 10-to-20-minute game (depending on the size of your class) gets students to describe and define key terms.

How it works: Prepare a number of cards containing four words related to a topic or subject and one silly or unrelated word. Students will work in teams of three or four. When it’s the first team’s turn, one student from that team stands at the front. The teacher gives that student a card, and the student has to describe the word to their team without ever saying the word, or variations of the word. I usually allow each team one free pass per round. The number of points that the team gets is equal to the number of words that the team guesses in 30 seconds. Teams rotate and continue until every player has had a turn.

3. JUST ONE

The aim of this 15-to-20-minute game is to get students to make connections between key vocabulary words.

How it works: Prepare a number of cards with five words related to a unit, topic, or subject (sometimes I reuse the ones I use in Articulate). Three to seven students work in a group. One student chooses a number between one and five and turns around, facing away from their classmates.

The first card is shown to the other students in the group, and without conferring, they write down one word (on a mini whiteboard) that relates to the corresponding word on the card. For example, if the clue is “muscle,” possible related words might be “movement,” “skeletal,” or “tissue.” All of the students reveal their mini whiteboards to their group—all except the first student.

If two students have written the same word, both words get erased (this encourages students to think beyond the most obvious links). Finally, the first student turns around to view the remaining words and has one chance to guess what the original word on the card was. Repeat the process with a new student guessing and a new card until everyone has had at least one turn. You can appeal to students’ competitive natures by giving them a score to aim for. So, for a group of five, everyone has two turns, and the aim is to achieve a total score of 7 or more out of 10.

4. TELEPHONE PICTIONARY

For this 20-to-30-minute game, students use diagrams to explain key vocabulary.

How it works: *Create groups of about six to eight students, ideally sitting in a circle. Each student is given a note card or piece of paper with a different phrase or term on it (examples I have used include “human evolution,” “the kidneys” and “cell membrane”).

The student has 30–45 seconds to sketch a picture to represent the phrase or term and then paperclips their sketch over the word so that it isn’t visible to the next student. This picture gets passed on to the next student, who (on a new card or piece of paper) writes a phrase or term that they think was given to the student before them based on the picture drawn. Then they use their sketch to cover the previous one. This continues around the group, alternating between drawing and writing until it returns to the original student.

This is happening simultaneously for all students—so everyone is always doing something. Once the cycle returns to the original student, they lay out all the cards, reveal the original phrase or term, and choose a winning contributor for their round—usually either the most accurate or the funniest one.

5. MIND MELD

This two-to-eight-minute game gets students verbalizing and making links between vocabulary words. It works well at the end of a lesson when you have a couple of spare minutes.

How it works: Students are put into pairs, and on the count of three, they say a word related to a given subject or unit. For example, in the topic “cells,” one student might say “cellulose,” and another student might say “eukaryotic.” On the count of three, they then simultaneously say another word that they think matches the two words just said. Now, one might say “plant” and another might say “cell wall.” This keeps going until both students say the same word at the same time. Words can’t be repeated at any time.. i am sure this game based learnig would  involve children in to furitful and purposeful learning

As always ,your valulable inputs , suggestions will promt me to modify the artical and to improve  upon