Royal Rumble--in the classroom?

What to do with content, what to do with content.... Okay, so there's content we want the students to know so we either give it to them (not preferred), or they read/learn about it themselves with our guidance. After the students have gotten the initial introduction to the content, what then? What do they do with it? It's a question that is not earth shattering. Any teacher worth a hoot thinks about ways the students can use the content and make it meaningful, make it stick, make it real.  Perhaps you are stuck or in a rut or sick of doing what you've always done. Perhaps you need a Royal Rumble. What is a royal rumble? It's when a bunch of people go into the ring and fight. It's like a tournament. All go in, only one comes out, triumphant, bathed in the glory of victory. So a Royal Rumble in the classroom sounds like a quick trip to a firing. However, that's not true. With any type of content, where you have a lot of "something," be it amendments of the constitution, states, countries, physical features, formula's, adjectives, animals, clouds, etc, etc., assign one of each of the "things" to a student or group of students. Create a bracket and have the students "compete" to get their "thing" to advance--based on most important, most impact, biggest difference maker, etc. Students face off, then the class votes to see who advances. Even when students are "beat out," they are still involved. Doing this puts meaning to the learning. You are forcing the students to think critically, about their own "thing" but also their "opponent." You are adding a healthy level of competition. You are getting them to think about all sides, and come up with arguments, statements, thoughts, etc. You aren't just asking them to regurgitate information on a test or quiz.  
So try it out! Think of something in your classroom that might fight the tournament style activity. Kids get enthused, they get into it. It's healthy. It's learning.  

Challenge your students with Function Carnival

Function Carnival is an interesting website that gives your students a unique set of challenges. I came across this site the other day and after messing around with it, I'm still not sure what, if any, the educational value of it is, besides a thinking challenge, but it might be something you would like to provide with your students if they are looking for a math/science challenge. With Function Carnival, you watch an animation, then try to graph that animation to make it look exactly like the original animation. There are three different challenges: a man getting shot out of a cannon with a parachute, a bumper cars and a ferris wheel. If nothing else, it is a fun challenge to check out. My personal favorite, of the three challenges, is trying to get the bumper car through the other cars without getting in an accident. It's a unique challenge because of all the other cars in your way. It would be a lot easier if those other cars were not there. Too bad the challenge isn't to drive the car through a huge car lot with all the cars mysteriously missing. Yeah, that would be much easier, but "easy" is not the style of Function Carnival.

Choose your own adventure

Get kids involved with a "choose your own adventure" challenge. Kids love playing video games because they get to control things, make choices, and interact with what's on the screen. Create that same type of atmosphere in school and you will see engagement rise and behavior problems sink. A "Choose your own Adventure" is nothing new. Books have been around for many, many years that allow the students to make a choice, then turn to a certain page to see what happened. If we make these on the computer, we will save paper, can share the link, and create a more dynamic activity. Create a "choose your own adventure" activity to put the students IN the activity and give them to power to make decisions. The decisions they make will determine the outcome of their game, just like in video games. 
Application for Education: Creating a "choose your own adventure" activity is time consuming, but once it's made, you always have it and can modify/adjust as the years melt away. Or, you could have your students make a simplified version of this activity and have them share with each other. This would really put the learning in high gear. I use these to introduce the ancient worlds that we study. Going into this game with little or no knowledge of the ancient world really makes them think about what they should do. They are eager to see if they made a good choice or not. They learn a lot from these games because they are engaged. It is a challenge. They want to score points. They want to survive. I have used Frontpage in the past to make these.  Interested in getting one started? Let me know and I would be happy to help. 

Here is an example of one I created for ancient Rome. 

Creating a Youtube Interactive Review

Looking for a unique/different way to review? Try making a Silent Video. I started making these last year and the kids have really liked both making them and watching them. With YouTube now open, the Silent Video is even better because students can watch them during the school day! 
How to make a Silent Video: After studying a unit or topic, compile a list of questions. You need to have at least one different question for each student. Pass out the list of questions and have your students each pick one question. Give them a piece of cardstock. Have the student write the question on the front of the cardstock and the answer on the back. I tell my students to use block/bubble lettering so it stands out more for the video. After each student has made their card, tell them to find a spot in the room to hide their card, but stay by it. Walk around the room with the video camera, going from student to student, video taping them showing the card, then flipping it to reveal the answer. Really emphasize with your students to think of a creative way to hide the card before showing the camera. Add a cool song for the students to listen to as they watch. Publish the video on YouTube and share! 
A Silent Review video becomes an interactive reviewing experience. As the students watch their video, along with the videos from the other classes, they can look at a question, think about the answer, then see if they are right when the card is flipped. This is more interesting/engaging then basic flash cards so the students are more likely to use this review tool. With YouTube open in school, they are now capable of watching it during study hall.

Get your students thinking with Lino It! (Try it yourself HERE!)

I have posted about Lino It before. Lino It is a virtual wall that allows you and your students to post "sticky notes" onto the virtual wall for everybody to see. This virtual board/sticky note concept is quite popular: Lino It, Wallwisher, corkboardme are some examples of websites that do this. Finding these tech tools is one thing, but how should we use them? One example of Lino It that I have used with success and found to really make my students think is a "Category Organization" activity. On Monday, I post a Lino board on my website. I set the settings to allow anyone to post a lino sticky note. I tell my students that throughout the week, they need to post a lino sticky note with any fact about Egypt (we were currently in our Egypt unit). I told them the requirement was 2 sticky notes per student. I used a different board for each of my five classes. All 127 students on one board would not have been good. At the end of the week, I took my classes into the computer lab and they needed to organize all the sticky notes on the Lino board into 4 specific categories: Nile River, Mummification, Religion and Miscellaneous. I told them that they needed to find at least 5 sticky notes per category. This gets them thinking about what categories each fact belongs to. It also can produce some debate on where the fact belongs or fits the best. If you can not get a computer lab for the organization activity, simply tell them to do it on their own.  Try it below!