Gamification

 

My partner and I were assigned to create a game for Social Studies and we decided to create a matching game for Black History Month. The students would be given a set of cards that have different events and locations that match significant figures. There would be equal number of pairs and the kids would help with creating the cards to encourage discussion about the significant events and individuals. The students would be paired up and would each take turns flipping over two cards to locate the matches for each of the cards.  

When we were creating the game, both of our placement classes were learning about the significance of Black History Month and we wanted to create an educational but fun game that could test the students knowledge of the topics that they were learning. We ultimately determined that a matching game was the best game to assess the students understanding. It was not difficult to come up with a game but the layout of how the game would be was a little difficult. 

In my Math Comp for Teaching course last semester, there was a lot of games incorporated into our lessons of how math can be made for students. We would often go outdoors and play several different math games such as ones with chalk or even a frisbee. The frisbee game had a bunch of numbers wrote on it and whatever two numbers your fingers landed on when you caught the frisbee from your partner was the number you had to solve in any way that you wanted out loud. Another game that I have commonly had in my courses is Kahoot. I actually enjoy Kahoot because it provides students with a little bit of competition but can also be a great way to prepare for test.