Finally, after thoughtful deliberation, they were to choose what their game would be. Following the brainstorming session, students were to discuss the ideas they had. Then, students were to share their brainstorming with their group and then brainstorm together for another 5 minutes. Students first silently brainstormed on their own for 5 minutes. Once groups and topics were assigned, I handed out a sheet giving guidelines on brainstorming. Groups then randomly picked a chemistry topic that their games would use as a central theme. We determined common themes among the games that were favorites among the students (such as cooperative, competitive, hands-on, imagination based, entertainment vs. Once everyone had gone, we discussed the games as a class. To start things off, they shared their favorite games with the people at their table groups. In preparation for the project, I assigned homework the night before we began to do a write-up on their favorite game to play and a description of why. The winning team won classroom tickets for our class drawings (a coveted prize). At the end, “investors” would come in and one group would be selected as the game that the investors would like to produce and sell. I told my students on the first day that the table groups they were sitting in now served as their new gaming start-ups and their task was to create an educational chemistry game. Although a typical PBL should be at least 6 weeks long, I tend to do shorter PBL’s (about a week or a week and a half) as they work better for me and my classroom. I received training on using PBL’s in the classroom last year through the Buck Institute for Education. PBL’s are a great way to get your students engaged in an over-arching topic. As a close for the year/as a start to the year, I thought I might discuss a successful mini PBL (project based learning) I tried out before the winter break began! My students have just about finished chemistry and I thought it might be fun to have the students come up with the review game for a change! Below you will find a summary of the week(ish) long project as well as some examples of what they created!
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