Keep them guessing!
There's a reason that games of chance are so popular. The unknown outcome gets the adrenaline pumping and the mind working. If you're looking for ways to increase novelty in your classroom then throw in a little random possibility, and it will get your kids engaged and focused. Today's Teaching Tuesday Twist are tools that increase perceived accountability through chance.
Rory's Story Cubes
Are you an English teacher looking for ways to get your kiddos writing? Rory's story cubes add the randomness factor while acting as a launching point for writing. There is an App version for $1.99 that would be great for a single teacher iPad. You could project the image to the class and roll to get their minds working. There is also a real version of this game if you don't have access to technology. |
Teaching Techniques with a Twist Highlight!
Project based learning is awesome, but sometimes feels overwhelming when you have to grade it. When teaching high school english, Eric Folks suggests adding randomness to assessing. He would label a SMART spinner with the parts of a project that could be graded. They never knew what might come up so all parts of the project had to be good. Each student would then spin to see which part was graded. Sometimes students would ask to have them whole thing graded...but what an awesome request!
Reward Randomly...Instead of just winning a review game, create a spinner with rewards that the top players get to spin after they win.
Random Assignment...Use a random number generator to assign a particular number or activity to a particular student that they will then teach to the class or their group.
Reward Randomly...Instead of just winning a review game, create a spinner with rewards that the top players get to spin after they win.
Random Assignment...Use a random number generator to assign a particular number or activity to a particular student that they will then teach to the class or their group.
SMART's Random Choosers
SMART software has tons of random chooser tools that add the flavor of chance to your classroom menu.
Math Game Randomizer (substituting the variable)
Randomly select students, randomly create groups, random image generator, etc. with all of these downloadable tools from SMART Exchange. Be sure to sign in or create an account in order to download.
Math Game Randomizer (substituting the variable)
Randomly select students, randomly create groups, random image generator, etc. with all of these downloadable tools from SMART Exchange. Be sure to sign in or create an account in order to download.
App Tools for Randomness...
Random Team Selector: free app where you can create groups using fun interactive backgrounds and sounds Random Name Selector Lite and Pro: Choose students randomly. The Pro version allows you to exclude students or only pick from students remaining. The Pro version is $2.99. Dice adds Spice! Dice can be used in a number (pardon the pun) of ways in math class from simple math facts practice to generating equations to working with probability. Check out Classroom Dice with the link above. |