The best review game EVER
When I think of Jeopardy, I need to take a seat. Arguably the most popular review game for teachers, Jeopardy is an utterly exhausting experience. Aside from explaining the rules, you have points to keep track of, dozens of questions to plug into an often malfunctioning powerpoint template, and despite the thorough preparation, students always end up arguing. I used to use Jeopardy review as a way to prepare for a unit test – so it was happening almost every month in one of my classes. It was out.of.control.
This year, thanks to some tips from pro teacher (and forever roommate) Erika, I’m changing the game. Quite literally. Jeopardy may never reign as the go-to review activity again. But what could I possibly replace it with? When I realized my students had probably never sat down to watch an entire episode of Jeopardy, it made sense that basketball would win their favor. Erika’s review advice was simple:
1. Place an empty trash can at the front of the classroom
2. Give each student a scratch piece of paper
3. Set up three throwing point lines (1 point is close, 2 points is further and 3 point is near-impossible)
4. Split the class into two paperball teams
Once the logistics are taken care of, the game happens by itself. One player from a team (this alternates) answers a review question read by the teacher (usually from a study guide) and if they get it right, earn a point for their team. Then, they get the chance to take a shot and earn more points for their team. After crunching up the paper to make their ball, they can choose any of the throw point lines and shoot. If they make it, the points are all theirs. If they miss, we move on to a player from the next team.
The directions take about 3 minutes to explain. The set up takes about 1 minute to completion. And the game itself is stress-free. There’s not much arguing with a missed shot. To be sure, there can be a great deal of variation if desired. I decided to project an image of a basketball hoop on the wall, and I also made the rule that an opposing team can steal a question that isn’t answered by the original player. It’s really all in your hands. Make it as complex or simple as you want. In the end, you’ve got a great activity that really gets them focused on studying the material and reviewing the content before the big assessment.
And it’s fun.
- Jeff
Consumer report
I’ve always been an advocate of my rights as a consumer. Both my parents instilled in me a strong conviction to stand up for getting what you paid for or for what you were promised. As a middle school student myself, I can remember returning french fries at McDonalds because they were cold. My friends thought I was rude, but it just made sense to me. Along the way, I’ve actually found that demanding a certain level of service generally means you’ll get something in return. No doubt – there’s a line you shouldn’t cross: when you go from being someone taken advantage of to a raging jackass in the customer service aisle. I don’t cross that line. I’m firm, but reasonable.
This isn’t coming from no where – I promise. In the last week, I’ve encountered two such incidents, in which I brought myself (almost too naturally) to challenge the products and services rendered by United Airlines and Hershey. On my recent flight home, my checked bag was lost for a day. They found it and delivered it the following day, but I still had to do something about it. I had, after all, paid $15 of my hard-earned money to have them check my bag and bring it to my destination. The least they could do is refund that service fee, since they failed in their service. I called United a few days ago and logged a complaint in their online system. Lo and behold – I received an email today with a $15 refund and a $100 gift card on a future United flight. Boo ya.
Then, I bought a 4 lb. bag of Jolly Ranchers at Target this weekend for my students. When I got to school and opened the bag, the Jolly Ranchers were all green apple – every single one of them! And my kids hate (absolutely hate) the green apples. It was kind of funny and I won’t deny that I enjoyed torturing them, but I really felt annoyed and wanted some kind of redemption. So, of course, I called Hershey today…during class…on speakerphone…hooked up to my speakers. I thought the kids could use a lesson in consumer rights.
And they loved it.
And I’m getting a coupon to replace the bag next week.
Jeff, 2. Corporations, 0.
- Jeff
The future
“Whohohoho, the future is looking a whoooole lot better.”
- Dr. Emmett Brown (Back to the Future)
I read somewhere a long time ago that visualizing your goals can have a positive effect on actually realizing them. My aunt used to put a picture of something that represented her goal next to her bed and she just glanced at it every day. It was a way of reminding herself that there was something out there still to do. Something to work toward. It could have been a big life goal or a small one. I don’t really remember how she did it, but her story really stuck with me.
Sometime last year, I started a Future bookmark tab on my browser to keep track of things that I want to do one day. It ranges from grad schools to foster agencies to summer plans. There’s really no rhyme or reason for what I put there – just whatever strikes my fancy. I take things down when they don’t resonate anymore, but I’ve found it a really powerful way of committing to the goals I set for myself. Like a long-term to do list, the Future bookmarks are little reminders that there is something out there still to do. Something to work toward.
- Jeff
Wash your hands and sing
My colleague Lauren found this ridiculous video online and encouraged me to help her make it into a Spanish lesson about flu symptoms. We ended up literally singing and dancing around the classroom while the students watched in disbelief. Watch the video and you’ll understand. Corny, but you have to admit…a little catchy.
The video was actually produced at a Philadelphia public performing arts school, and is being used in a campaign to help educate kids about preventing the spread of H1N1 this year. The Department of Health has partnered up for the cause and I think they produced something worthy of attention. Pass it on to anyone who might enjoy a little song and dance, or a teacher in need of a half-hearted Thanksgiving week lesson.
- Jeff
Bright and sunny
I describe school climate to my kids as if I’m giving a weather report: is our school bright and sunny or dark and cloudy? In other words, do our students feel safe and supported or scared and distracted while at school? It’s a question I already had the answer to, but I wanted my students to figure it out on their own. As part of my Student Government elective, I designed a month-long, student-led project to determine our school’s climate.
It started with a review of several previously tested school climate reports and surveys, which eventually led us to create our own 50 question survey that was distributed to all of our middle school students (about 200 kids). The survey took a while to organize, since we couldn’t at first agree on which questions to include. Some students wanted to focus on peer-to-peer relationships and bullying while others wanted to focus on the role of teachers in creating school climate. In the end, we used it all and hoped none of our survey participants would get lazy and skip it altogether. The survey was, after all, anonymous and voluntary.
To hook them on the topic (since school climate isn’t necessarily on their radar), we read an article called “Bathrooms a reflection of school climate,” which discussed the symbolic role that bathrooms can play in showcasing a school’s climate. In short – dirty, stinky, dysfunctional bathrooms = dysfunctional, unkept, violent schools. To make the link real, we did some research of our own. I had the kids take a cleanliness survey of our school bathrooms before we set out to survey their classmates. It was a good exercise in understanding the connection between a school’s efforts outside the classroom to inside the classroom. As expected, our bathrooms are like marble palaces. Our administrators actually openly discuss the importance of keeping them clean and well maintained. I would agree that it plays an important role in what kind of school we are. At our school, the bathroom isn’t a place to vandalize, hang out or make trouble. Some reports find that bullying most often takes place in the school bathroom – a place where teachers and staff usually steer clear – so it was important for them to consider making our survey.
In the end, the survey took about 5 weeks to implement – from start to finish. After tallying the data and creating some nifty graphs, this is what we found:
It has proven to be helpful for some of my student leaders to look more carefully at the state of our school. From here, we’re supposed to start addressing some of the problems we see are evident from the survey results. Looking at some of the key questions (green, red and teal) we see a pretty rosy picture. I can’t explain how good it felt to see our students actually feel safe and supported at our school. And while everything is not so perfect, (it seems many students experience bullying, yet no one seems to be a bully) it is a place I am lucky to call work, and my students are lucky to call school.
The next phase of the project is taking a field trip to a not-so-rosy school and administering the same survey to a few classes. I want my students to understand the disparity in public schools and the potential they have to succeed in a school like ours. Maybe it will open some eyes and snap some of them out of their apathy and strangely placed sense of entitlement.
My favorite part of the survey was showing the graphs to my student government kids. Within moments, Monica shouted, “I need some sunglasses…our school is soooooo bright and sunny.”
- Jeff
Boys II Men
Never “one of the guys” growing up, I spent much of last year as somewhat of an outsider among the male staff members at school. I can count my male friends on one hand, and if we’re just counting straight guys, it’s even less. At school, it didn’t help that I was the only male teacher on the middle school team. And while I fit in to a large degree, I always felt a bit out of touch in this way. There was an unsaid tension that existed whenever the men tried to include me in a pick up basketball game or conversation about their weekend excursions at the club. It got to a point when I think they just kind of gave up on me, relying instead on a friendly “hello” and fist bump every now and then.
More than reveal my own vulnerabilities, these insecurities prevented me from being seen as a legitimate role model in the eyes of my male students. The boys mentoring program had existed before I came to DCS, but it had little life and energy. The men who led it were unmotivated and put on half-hearted events that didn’t really leave an impression on the boys. They went to a car show here, a homeless shelter there. While important, these trips were glaringly missing the mark.
Since I’m one of the veteran teachers this year (now one of two men in the middle school), I felt compelled to take things into my own hands. It started with a makeover – I designed a new logo for the group, wrote up a vision and mission and planned out monthly excursions for the academic year. By June, our boys will have visited a domestic violence shelter, learned about first date etiquette and completed a group ropes course.
To start things off, I wanted to go all out. These boys needed to see something they would never forget – an experience that could permeate their tough exteriors and start a real dialogue about life and the meaning of “being a man.” Using a connection from within our school, we scheduled a visit to the Philadelphia County Courthouse & Jail to learn about actions and consequences, and how the justice system works (and sometimes doesn’t work). After doing some research to prepare for the trip, I gathered some pretty offensive statistics.
To start, nearly 66% of African American kids don’t live with their biological fathers. Of those, only 9% have ever met their father. The prison population in the U.S. is the largest of all industrialized countries and puts about 1/31 of its citizens under correctional control at some point in their lives. Within the African American population, 1/11 will come in contact with a jail or prison during their lifetime. African Americans make up 14% of the U.S. population, but 40% of the prison population. And it gets worse and worse. The stories behind these numbers bring shame to our country and our failed justice system. But it’s what we have, and it’s what my boys will deal with one day. So I figure they might as well understand it and see it before they end up living it.
We departed school at 10 this morning and arrived at the marble courthouse just in time to get swept through the metal detector and rushed into a waiting room. The guards led the boys onto a platform and walked them into a Sheriff’s transport bus (the gray ones with barred windows). The boys were curious, looking around and chatting. Our tour guide arrived and greeted the boys.
“How’s everyone doin’ today? Feeling alright?”
The boys must have thought they were still at school. Little laughs and giggles filled the cold bus, and they replied with gleefull “yeses” and “good mornings.” Before they even got through it, he interrupted.
“Shut the fuck up.”
Silence.
And I didn’t hear a word for the next 2 hours. We were taken to a holding cell and told about the horrors of prison rapes, violence and cell mate murders in the middle of the night. Whether the stories were true of not, those kids were hanging on every word. One fascinating point about the prison economy that caught my attention: due to new restrictions on smoking in prisons, cigarettes are no longer allowed, eliminating a key product of the prison trade system. Cigarettes used to be the item of choice to pay for things in jail. Since they are mostly outlawed, sex has become the main commodity of trade. Newly minted prisoners have nothing to use for collateral except their bodies. Sick and sad, but an interesting implication of policy.
Next, we headed to the cell blocks to see the inmates living quarters up close. No doubt the tour guide riled up the inmates before we got there, because it was unreal. They were pounding on the windows and walls, yelling at the boys, making threats and lewd gestures. It was probably traumatizing for some of them, but a reality that they surely didn’t consider before. Walking by all 177 inmates for the next 10 minutes felt like an eternity. Some of the boys just stopped looking to their sides, blocking out their periphery to avoid a sudden breakdown or awkward glance.
By the time the tour was over, we were discussing the importance of education and the choices that lead to real success. The jail staff did a great job keeping it real and making it an accessible experience for even my middle school boys – some of them just 12 years old. It got me to thinking about how amazing it would be if every child, urban or not, black or not, experienced a similar trip – seeing the lifestyle of confinement and hearing about the limited opportunities after conviction. It might give people a different perspective, a gratitude for freedom and laws that might otherwise seem abstract and unnecessary.
I don’t think the boys see me as any more of a role model this year than last, but I also know that’s not the point. Being a role model has nothing to do with the mentor. It has everything to do with the kid. I won’t be in their lives for long, but I’m gonna make a go of it while I am.
- Jeff
Completely self gratuitous
I had a dream over the summer. My students were in their seats doing work. Their pencils never broke. They never got up to sharpen them if they did. They never lost or forgot their class work or materials at home. They took notes on lined paper and kept them in order. I woke up from my dream and took some time this summer to imagine how to make that dream a reality in my classroom this year. My solution, although extreme, has fit the bill (so far).
A month into school, my new system of organization has changed the way students work and learn in my classroom. And even more, it has changed the way I teach. No longer vulnerable to student excuses, I can rely on my students having their materials and class work every single day of the week. For non-teachers, this post might just be annoying. But for those teachers out there, let me explain.
With an up-front personal investment of about $400, I bought all of my students binder kits, which included a 3-ring binder, pencil pouch, pencils, pens, a self-contained pencil sharpener, divider tabs and lined notebook paper. I charged my students $4 for the kit, and ended up eating only about $50 when it’s all said and done. Definitely worth it in my eyes. You see, this binder doesn’t leave the classroom – it is never, ever, ever allowed to leave the classroom. The classwork binders stay in the bindercase, minimizing the chances of students leaving work in their lockers or at home, and eliminating the need to supply my students with pencils when they break or are lost. There are literally no excuses for my students to not be prepared or ready to learn. They have everything they need in their binder, and those kids know I’m dead serious about it.
I also bought an Ikea bookcase on craigslist to store them and keep things in order. You’ll also notice my adorable sign above the binder case “Learning to organize, organizing to learn.” And if you look real close, you’ll find my mistake. At the very most, this is an idea teachers might want to use in their own classroom. At the very least, I got to show off.
- Jeff
My 9/11
Since my birthday falls on a somewhat unfortunate event in history, I sometimes try to overcompensate for the fact that, although it should be a time for reflection, 9/11 evokes some pretty nasty imagery and memories. September 11th will always be my birthday, and while I see room for recognizing the tragedy of that day in 2001, I’m not about to give up the joy of that day in 1985. Birthdays have always been fun, and they actually continue to get more fun because people tend to never forget my birthday…I suppose that’s one perk I can live with.
This year was going to be no exception. In fact, I planned my birthday celebrations far in advance this year. During the summer, as I meandered in and out of planning my first few weeks of classes, I decided to throw myself a birthday party at school. Since the first two weeks of school are focused on acculturating the classroom anyway, I figured throwing a lil’ party wouldn’t do any harm. And then it hit me – I could actually take it one step further and make the birthday celebration something meaningful. More than a party, this was going to be a lesson.
As my students walked into class, they saw “Happy Birthday” banners, streamers, balloons taped to the walls and bags of presents piled in the front of the room. Had the administration not announced my birthday on the morning bulletin, this would have been my student’s first clue that today was going to be different. To begin, I made very clear that my birthday was important – that I expected every single one of them to follow the rules and show respect. After all, who wants to piss off their teacher the first week of school…and on his birthday nonetheless? I’ll tell you – no one.
In an effort to get them comfortable with me (and I’ll admit this was a risk) I projected an image of myself as a baby boy, complete with a party hat and cake. They loved it, and the class was instantly at ease. Little did they know, I told them, they were invited to my birthday party. And to get things started, we played an old-fashioned game of pin the tail on the donkey. I started off with the blindfold and picked a student volunteer to spin and guide me. Of course, I ended up outside with the door shut on my first try. Their attempt to put me out of class seemed like more of an embrace than a cruel tease. It felt good to know they were comfortable playing a joke on me. At any rate, I suck at pinning tails on donkeys. I had several students throughout the day that were far better and more accurate.
The next round of celebration was more geared toward getting to know my new students. Particularly, getting to know their names. Thankfully, I didn’t forget any of my students from last year, but that only takes care of 50. With 110 new students, I’ve got a big job ahead of me. We played a pretty tame name game where students attach an animal or adjective to their name that starts with the same letter as their first name. For example, I was Mr. Manassero Marbles. And as kids make their way around the circle, each successive player needs to name off all the people before them. Naturally I was last and I’m proud to say I got everyone’s names right the first time around each period. I doubt much of it stuck over the weekend, but it got me started.
After the name game, I took them back to the gifts strewn in front of the room. No birthday party would be complete without opening some presents. I had gone out the night before and spent my allowance at the dollar store on cheap toys and school supplies to fill up the four gift bags I had to open. In an effort to include them and get them on my side, I raffled off the gifts as I opened them in front of the class. It was probably he most fun thing I’ve done in a long time. Those kids went crazy, and by the end of it they were practically eating out of my hand. Things were going just as I planned.
And to finish the period off, I held up a piece of cake with a slim candle at its center. I wanted to make this last day of our first week together something for them to work from, so I made them a proposal. They had to sing me happy birthday and watch me make my birthday wish. When I asked them what they thought I wished for, they yelled out “car,” “money,” and “a date.” I told them my wish had nothing to do with money or material things, and certainly not a date. My wish, I told them, was about each one of them. Of course, I couldn’t tell them my wish – then it wouldn’t come true. Instead, I gave them the opportunity to make a wish of their own. But it couldn’t be about anything material – it had to be about this year at school. The responses I eventually read confirmed my suspicion that these kids expect something great from this year. “I want to make my mom proud,” “I wish for good grades,” and “I need to make my behavior better” were typical. It melted my heart and made my day.
I took those wishes and put them in a jar on my desk. For the rest of the year, I’ll be reminding them of that day and the goals they set for themselves. The strangest thing is that most of my students were only 3 on that tragic day 8 years ago. For them, in a rare shift from my usual encounters, my birthday was nothing more than another day. And when the right time comes, I’ll tell them what happened and why. It seems their memories of 9/11 won’t be all about terrorism and death. There’s room for celebrating life, and maybe they’ll remember that, too.
Ways of explaining
I took a course my freshmen year of college about educational inequities with a professor named Ingrid Seyer-Ouchi. Ingrid was an amazing teacher and I made it a point to follow her closely during my four years at Berkeley. She became a mentor of sorts and has played an important role in my own development as an educator and thinker. So many of her ideas and theories stuck with me. In fact, as I was planning my first week of lessons I decided to draw from one of Ingrid’s earlier lectures about exploring multiple perspectives to synthesize information. It was a lesson in critical thinking and I never forgot it. I figured it would be a good way to get my students to start thinking about how to learn about the past.
The entire lesson revolved around a dangerous stretch of highway in California called Vasco Road in Alameda County. Vasco Road was the site of multiple fatal car accidents within a short period of time, and it alarmed community members and the commuters that drove it every day. The accidents garnered substantial news coverage, as any google search will show. I introduced Vasco Road to my students by projecting a large image of the curved road on the wall. We took some simple steps to identify all the parts of the picture – the curved road, rural setting and narrow lanes. Once the features were spotted, I started talking about the mysterious number of deadly car accidents that kept happening on Vasco Road. Being a teacher can require a bit of creativity on the spot, so I ended up making the lesson more of a mystery than a lesson in history. By the time I unveiled the pictures of 4 car pile-ups, the kids were invested in figuring out why all these accidents kept happening on Vasco Road. Now the learning could begin.
I told them that there were three different groups of people that had three different ways of explaining what was happening. There were police officers, community members and the road engineers. None of these people could agree on what was happening or how to solve the problem. I split my students into three groups and assigned them a worksheet that detailed each of the group’s positions. After reading their respective perspectives independently, the groups got together to exchange ideas and came up with three main ideas to present to the class about how they could explain the mystery of Vasco Road.
The police officers thought the drivers were speeding and being reckless. Their solution was to install speed limit signs and enforce tickets and double fines for breaking traffic laws on Vasco Road.
The community members thought the drivers were mostly city commuters and needed a lesson in driving on country roads. Their solution was to install speed signs and limit the number of cars allowed on the road during commute hours.
The last group, the road engineers, had a very different explanation. They thought the road was the problem and proposed that the road be widened by 2 lanes and the sharp curve be straightened out after reconstructing the road.
After the three groups presented their positions, I told the students what actually happened with Vasco Road. It turns out that each group had something right, but none of them were completely on target. To stop the car accidents, they needed to install speed signs, widen the road and reshape the sharp curved shoulder. When all was said and done, my students realized that no one group had all the right answers – that with each perspective came a pat of the solution that made sense.
I brought them back to the picture of Vasco Road and I made the connection back to history: history is made up of multiple perspectives and different ways of explaining why something happened. Any event in history can be seen as a car accident on Vasco Road. There is no one way of explaining why it happened. There is no one way of understanding how it happened. There is no one story that is completely right, true or whole. And in that moment, I saw a look in their eyes that filled me with the kind of joy a teacher seeks in the every day. They got it, and while I’m not sure they really understand the big picture, they were making a big connection. My highest hope is that I can take them back to Vasco Road throughout the year and apply what they remember about ways of explaining to get them to think more critically about whatever historical event or person we happen to be studying.
Five years later, I still haven’t forgotten when Ingrid taught me about Vasco Road.
Let’s hope my students don’t either.
- Jeff
I have… Who has…
As part of my week review for this week’s test, I put together a great activity that I heard about from a teachers’ workshop this year. It’s simple and direct, yet allows for a different type of engagement than most review methods.
Using the current topic of study, you will be making a class set of questions and answers. Each question should be related to concepts you taught in class and each must match exactly with a corresponding answer. There can’t be any questions that have ambigious or multiple possible answers. If you make that mistake, then the activity is completely thrown out of whack.
Once you have a class set of questions and answers, you will be formatting them into a template that looks like this:
No one sheet will have the matching question and answer. Instead, you create a pattern of matching questions and answers that force students to find the corresponding answer to their “Who has…” question. In this way, students must listen to their classmates “Who has…” question in order to make sure they are ready if their card has the corresponding answer.
Confused? Here is an example:
In this example, someone would start off by standing and asking, “Who has…active resistance?” Then, the student with the definition of active resistance would stand and read their card. “I have…physical, or sometimes violent, rejectio of somone.” After they have confirmed a match, they continue the chain by asking, “Who has…slave’s collar?” The person with the corresponding answer then stands and reads, “I have…a device used to find slaves that escape from plantations” and so on. The activity continues until all students have read their cards. If done correctly (meaning no one messes up or goes out of order) the last question will link to the first person who started the game.
The idea is that students must have a good understanding of the concepts and terms used because they are forced to follow along with their peers. It keeps them engaged (for the most part) and offers a good, fast way of reviewing a lot of material. If you really want to make sure they are kept busy while waiting (or for those students whose turn is over) you can have them fill in the questions and answers on a flow-chart to keep track as people announce their I have…Who has cards.
Don’t make the mistake of doing this activity too early or if you don’t think they are ready for it. I can attest from personal experience that it feels pretty crappy to see your students lost with an activity that is supposed to showcase mastery. Give it time, and this review strategy can serve a good purpose.
- Jeff
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