A Different Way to Review Concepts

"Can we do that again?" is music to my ears. I have been reviewing some concepts of communication and collaboration with the sixth through eighth grade students. I put the concepts together in a voting format and offered Krabby Patties to the winners. Everyone was engaged and excited to the last question.

The Concepts
The students (through various grade level projects) have worked on wikis, seen or worked on blogs, created podcasts, and used a chat room. They have participated with students in classrooms around the world both synchronously (real time) and asynchronously (with a delay). We have used a range of tools from word processors, spreadsheets, and presentation to graphics and multimedia. They use the products well, but I wanted to see what terminology was sticking with the students. It gave us an opportunity to discuss misconceptions.

The Methodology
I created an ActivInspire flipchart to use with our Activotes. I set up a "class" called Groupings. The students sat in groups of three and passed the Activote between them as they worked together to select the best answer. If I didn't have the Activotes, I could see using Poll Everywhere with the poll4.com website. It would still work well. Instead of ActivInspire, I would use PowerPoint.

I created a spreadsheet to keep track of which group had correct answers. As each question was presented and voted on, I hid the ActivInspire screen and typed a 1 or 0 for the correct and incorrect responses.

After 15 questions, the winner(s) were declared and they took a Krabby Patty candy. In four of the five classes, there was one winner. In one class, there was a three way tie so the fourth team got a packet of conversation hearts to split.

We Will Do It Again
The eighth grade class, in for the second time this week, wanted to have another competition today. I had to tell them that I would put together a new set of questions for after our Easter break. This is going to become my new standard for what can be dry, information reviews of concepts. It's a win for everyone.