“The activity is good and the students themselves admitted that they like to work in this way, that it is easier for everyone to think about the answers and express themselves more confidently, than if they had to speak alone. It requires little resources from the teacher, but the whole lesson is led by the students themselves – they create the questions themselves; they answer themselves; they create the assessment criteria, they evaluate themselves”.
General objective
- To learn school subjects among students and facilitators, through a creative teamwork approach.
Learning objectives
- To make students practice and review on several topics and/or subjects in view of a final test on a specific theme, using peer learning and teamworking.
- To promote cooperation & team work.
- To support the organization of the learning process in the initiation and consolidation phase.
- To master the subject and diversify teaching methods.
- To promote motivation for learning the content.
- To strengthen the knowledge about what has already been learned.
Results, hints and inspirations from the experimentation
Click on the following boxes, each one will show you the results of project experimentation in each country (and useful suggestions for your implementation).
Italy
Age:
15 years old
Subject:
Mathematics
Local adaptation:
The Italian teacher used the activity with a bigger group than foreseen (27 people instead of 20) so it took slightly more time to implement it (70 minutes instead of 60).
How did the teachers implement the activity?
Given the bigger number of students involved, the class has been divided into 5 teams. Each team has been assigned a different mathematical topic by their Math teacher.
Each team has prepared questions related to the assigned topic to be answered by the other team. By focusing on the same discipline but dealing with different topics all at once, it’s a good way to make the activity more challenging, effective and stimulating both for students and the teachers.
How did students react to the activity?
Students were highly motivated and really proud of the results they achieved.
Other comments:
Since the activity is learner-centred, teachers were really satisfied with the implementation because students can learn/study/revise school topics using an alternative and effective method.
Finally, the teachers highly suggest the implementation of the activity since it also develops self-esteem and self-confidence, students can learn quickly from each other and – most important – the activity allows to involve students who have different learning styles.
Bulgaria
Age:
15-16 years old
Subject:
English
Local adaptation:
The adaptation followed what has been proposed in the original activity.
How did the teachers implement the activity?
The teacher used it in order to explain and introduce different type of texts.
How did students react to the activity?
Students said that the activity allowed them to create a comfortable learning atmosphere, working in a group, to research together and discover new facts of the subject. Some of them appreciated also the fact to understand what a teacher can feel during the lesson.
Other comments:
The activity can be really noisy during the parallel work among groups, so it is better to monitor closely the implementation allowing a more quiet and productive outcome.
France
Age:
14-18 years old
Subject:
Science
Local adaptation:
The technique has been chosen in order to review a lesson learned from the previous school year.
How did the teachers implement the activity?
Teachers used some preparation material and activity to introduce the activity. Specifically, the teacher added a preliminary step: each student had to think of a question and an answer before starting the group work. Then, teachers divided the classroom in 6 groups (not only 2 as foreseen originally by the activity), and the teacher herself was the facilitator. About the turn to make question, rotation has been chosen: each team asked questions to the other groups, allowing them to earn points for their team. The score was noted on a billboard or on a flipchart, thus allowing all students to see what level each team reached.
How did students react to the activity?
Students reacted in 2 completely different ways: as strong point, there was a very good involvement of some students who are usually passive, since the activity promotes the team spirit.
At the same time, some weakness came out: some emotional outbursts linked to the desire to win happened from some students, so it is important to know how to manage such situation in this case.
Other comments:
The activity managed to achieve the expected result, but teachers had to deal with the “sore losers”, who complained about the result. It can be also a good chance to explain the meaning of a “healthy competition” among students. Students were really satisfied but also some of them expressed anxiety, so it can be helpful to provide a calm reminder during the implementation.
Latvia
Age:
12-18 years old
Subject:
Biology, History, Social Science, Geography, Computer Science, Sports, Mathematics
Local adaptation:
This activity has been widely used by Latvian teachers. Specifically, some subjects have been benefitted by this implementation:
- History: It helps to learn concepts and facts in History
- Informatics: It has helped to learn the theory of the subject, because students were more interested in looking for new forms of work and learning in a different way.
- Natural Sciences: The activity helped to review individual topics at the end of the lesson. Students had to go deeper into the content of the topic in the process of preparing questions and finding answers. The method promoted motivation for learning the content as well as cooperation and teamwork among the peers.
- Math: It has been chosen to define specific mathematical terms.
Generally, the activity has been evaluated positively by the teachers. Some of them said:
” The activity is good and the students themselves admitted that they like to work in this way, that it is easier for everyone to think about the answers and express themselves more confidently, than if they had to speak alone. It requires little resources from the teacher, but the whole lesson is led by the students themselves – they create the questions themselves; they answer themselves; they create the assessment criteria, they evaluate themselves”.
How did the teachers implement the activity?
The approach has been used creatively in several subjects, since teachers were really satisfied in the way it worked: in fact, through the game, the method invites students to search for information about terms related to the subject thus forming comprehensible questions for other teams, strengthening cooperation skills among their peers.
In some case, teachers proposed the whole class to agree on a grading system. Where it happened – for example, during a Math lesson – it didn’t take much time, because the opinions did not differ much within the class: the main speakers were the group leaders, and this helped them to show the others why they choose such criteria.
Other teachers prepared some work before implementing the game: specifically, some of them prepared some the terms before, thus allowing the teacher to intervene in the group work only when there was a dispute about a term among the groups. When this happened, the teacher invited students to look for an explanation of the term in the textbook together. This has been an approach helping them to understand better the term, to easily clarify it and allowing them to express more precisely in a later stage.
How did students react to the activity?
The students were interested and enjoyed working together. Sometimes, the only challenge was to get the work done for all the groups on time, so if the groups are not ready, it can take more time than foreseen. However, one of the most enjoyable features by the students was setting assessment criteria and evaluating the work of other groups.
Other comments:
It is necessary to define evaluation criteria, there are possible disputes about it. Leaders can impose their views; if there is no leader, the work does not move forward. It is necessary for teachers to understand if it is necessary to intervene and how to balance the situation.