6 Games
Chapter Intro
We think of games as being fun and playful, and using games (or gamified elements) in the classroom has been shown to be linked to increased engagement and motivation to learn. Students can use games to learn or review knowledge and skills, and immersive games can provide a context for applying skills and knowledge (see for example, Virtual escape room helps nursing students learn clinical skills).
Trivia Games
Trivia games provide a way to gamify course content, providing a fun, low-stakes way for students to learn together while reviewing key skills or knowledge.
Don’t forget that you can have students create the game as well! Students will have to review facts in order to create a game, and the game can be shared with other students or the whole class for further review. You could have students create and swap trivia games.
Prep Ahead
Decide on the style of trivia game you want to play, as this will shape the resources that you’ll need to pull it off. For example, if you plan to create a Jeopardy-style game for students to use for individual review, you’ll need to create, or find and modify, a Jeopardy-style game board.
Ingredients
- Learning goal(s)
- Prompts/expectations for students
- A trivia game template or tool
- Assessment and/or feedback strategy
Step by Step Instructions
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- Identify your learning goals. Some examples:
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- Students will use game to review course topics with the goal of achieving 100% correct responses.
- Students will create a review game for their classmates on a course topic, with accurate questions and responses.
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- Create a prompt/instructions. Your instructions will depend a bit on the exact game that you are playing, and how game play is configured (the size of groups, the number of rounds, any specific rules for turn taking, etc.). Make sure to let students know ahead of time any details of game play, as well as whether and how the game will be assessed.
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- Identify a tool. There are lots of options for creating trivia games. Here are a few:
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- Jeopardy game using Google Slides template – can be used for individual review; students can create Jeopardy boards for other students to use. To get started, copy and modify this Jeopardy Google Slides template.
- Kahoot – a website that allows you to create a limited number of free trivia games. (There are lots of sites like this one; we do caution you to consider student data privacy when using free websites. Find out, what info does it require you to share in order to use the site?).
- H5P – a tool that allows you to create interactive content including review games and quizzes, that you can embed in Canvas or a website. Learn more about the types of interactive content you can create, and use Middlebury’s free H5P sandbox to create your own content.
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- Give feedback/assess. We recommend using trivia games as low- or no-stakes options for reviewing course content. Many games will provide immediate feedback regarding correct responses either through the game interface, or in the course of game play.
EXAMPLE
In this activity, we created a Jeopardy!-style game about Middlebury by modifying a free Google Slides template. You can use the template to create a Jeopardy!-style game using your course content – or, have students create the game. Asking students to create the game provides two opportunities for review; students will have to review facts in order to create a game, and the game can then be played by groups of students or the whole class.
There are lots of ways to play. To play asynchronously, you would likely want to use a Microsoft or Google Form (or another survey or form tool) or a Canvas quiz, rather than Google Slides. You could have students work through answering questions either solo or in teams. If they are working in teams, you could have each team member be responsible for submitting responses for one category (e.g., on the Middlebury game, General Facts, Famous Alums, In the News, etc.) or for one dollar or point level (e.g., $100 questions, $200 questions, etc.). Students or teams could compete against each other to see who could garner the highest number of correct answers.
Additional Resources
- Using a Jeopardy!-style Review Game for Content Review (from the Middlebury Teaching & Learning Knowledge Base)
Digital Escape Rooms
A digital escape room is a type of immersive online game that is typically played by a team of students, working together to solve a series of puzzles in a fixed amount of time in order to escape from a situation or unlock the answer to a larger mystery. You can have multiple teams of students competing against each other, or just have each of the teams compete against the clock.The topic of an escape room and its associated puzzles can be focused on any discipline, or group of disciplines. There are different approaches you can use to design your escape room, including: linear, nonlinear, mixed linear and nonlinear, red herring, and scavenger hunt.
Some of the skills that students engage in when working with escape rooms include:
- Practicing skills and reinforcing foundational knowledge
- Problem solving / critical thinking
- Team building
- Working within time constraints
You can also ask students to design their own escape room as a learning exercise!
Prep Ahead
Decide on the learning objectives, topic, and storyline for the escape room. Then plan out a series of three to five puzzles that students will need to solve to move through the escape room. These puzzles should engage students in skill practice related to the learning objectives and topic.
You will also need to determine the amount of time that students will have to solve each puzzle and complete the overall escape. The time allotment could be as short or long as you feel is realistic for the tasks and puzzles involved. Synchronous escape rooms will likely work better using shorter time spans, with a max of about an hour total, while asynchronous escape rooms could be stretched over longer time spans, even days or weeks.
Ingredients
- Learning goal(s)
- A creative storyline with three to five problems to solve along the way
- Prompts/expectations for students
- An online platform or tools
- Assessment and/or feedback strategy
Step by Step Instructions
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- Identify your learning goals. Some examples:
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- Students will use the escape room to review course topics with the goal of achieving 100% correct responses.
- Students will create an escape room for their classmates on a course topic, with accurate questions and responses.
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- Create a storyline. Be creative and have fun with the storyline. Tie it to a real-world setting and add in a dash of urgency. Let students know why it’s important they solve the clues and escape the situation within the timeline you devise.
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- Create three to five (or more) individual problems to solve along the way. These problems need to be able to be assessed in an automated way, so that when students input the correct response, the next clue is revealed to them (and eventually, so they escape the situation!). Therefore, the answers or responses to the clues you provide will need to be standardized. For example, a number, exact text, matching, an image hotspot, a formula, GPS coordinates, ordering items in a list, etc.
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- Determine the amount of time that students will have to solve each clue. Total these together to determine how much time they’ll have overall to escape.
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- Identify an online platform or tool to build the escape room. There are many options for creating digital escape rooms. Two platforms that work well for digital escape rooms that are available for free to Middlebury faculty, students, and staff are:
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- Canvas
- Google Forms
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- Build the escape room using your tool or platform of choice.
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- Give feedback/assess. Make sure to let students know ahead of time any details of game play, as well as whether and how the game will be assessed. We recommend using escape rooms as low- or no-stakes options for reviewing or practicing course content. Escape rooms will provide immediate automated feedback regarding correct responses either through the game interface, or in the course of game play.
EXAMPLES
Island Escape Room Using Canvas
You wake up and discover you are trapped on a remote tropical island with a handful of colleagues. You don’t know where you are or how you got there.
The tide is coming in fast. Your colleague from the oceanography department calculates that the island will be completely submerged underwater once peak high tide is reached.
You find a message in a bottle under a tree. It says there is a secret treehouse with a stash of food hidden on the island. The message contains a series of clues as to where you can find them.
You must work together to quickly locate the treehouse, so that you and your colleagues can climb to safety.
Poetry Breakout Room Using Google Forms
You are Langston Hughes in Harlem in May 1936. You receive an urgent telegram telling you Esquire Magazine has made a mistake. They are going to publish Let America Be America Again as an anonymous poem rather than crediting you! You need to call the publisher to get this fixed. Esquire’s phone number is in your friend’s journal, which is in his lock box…which has four locks! You better break open the box soon because Esquire’s July edition goes to print in 45 minutes! If not, you will lose credit for a classic poem!
Additional Resources
