[Informatics] A theory revision game

[Mark]

Hi, time-fillers

This is a true story.

Since I gave up teaching, I have a recurring bad dream that I am teaching
again, and I am wandering around a school, late for class, but unable to
find the right classroom.
If I ever *do* locate the room, I realise that exams are a week away and I
have not actually covered *any* of the course yet. I awake in a sweaty
panic.

Last night, however, I actually had a pleasant and productive teaching
dream.

My kids were playing a game called 'Key Knowledge Kwiz'.
It went something like this (with a little gap-filling done after I woke
up)...

There are two competing teams - of 1, 2 or 3 kids per team. Or 4. Doesn't
matter.

Each team prepares a list of IT theory questions that must have verifiably
true or false answers. Maybe 5 questions per team member, plus some spares,
just in case (as explained later).

(Because kids create their own questions, the teacher doesn't have to spend
time in advance writing them. So the game can be sprung at any time, and
the creative responsibility is squarely on the students' shoulders.)

Teams take turns to give the other team a question, e.g. "New York is one
of the accepted citation styles."

The other team says whether the answer is true or false (for 1 point). Team
members may confer before answering.

The answering team may then earn another 2 marks for either:
- correctly explaining why the answer is false. (e.g. "The style is
'Chicago', not "New York")
or
- if the answer was 'true', giving a correct and relevant Fun Fact (e.g.
"Fun fact: another accepted style is IEEE").

A team is not allowed to pose a question that has either already been asked
by the other team, or has already given as a Fun Fact.
So, using the examples above, neither team could then ask a question about
'IEEE' or 'Chicago'.

(This means that teams need to have some spare questions and/or improvise
new ones if they suddenly find some of their questions are suddenly out of
play. This adds a little improv spice to the game.)

To add difficulty, if a team mistakenly asks a question that does
*not* actually
have a true or false answer (e.g. "Is a large company subject to the
Privacy Act 1988?"), the other team can challenge the question (for 2
points) and clearly explain why it is invalid (for 4 points), for example,
"Objection! If it's a private company, its size is not relevant. It depends
on whether the company turns over more then $3m a year or... etc"

(Question-setters will be more careful when framing their questions if they
know they will give away twice as many points because they carelessly ask a
faulty question.)

If there is a dispute over scoring, the audience can be the adjudicators
and argue the merits of the question and/or answer until a crowd-sourced
decision is agreed upon.

The teacher only needs to make a final arbitration in case the entire crowd
is wrong - but the teacher needs to prove that the final judgement is valid.

After I woke up, I realised that the game may be useful to

(a) fill in time.
(b) help kids focus on very specific KK details.
(c) help them judge and deal with dodgy exam questions in section A where
none of the available options is correct.
(d) anticipate common errors and frame questions to exploit them (as exams
often do)
(e) stop the teacher talking all the time.

I must say that it was a pleasant relief from my usual horrible teaching
dream.

Now, I'm *not* saying this game is on a par with Paul McCartney composing
the tune of "Yesterday" as he slept, but if I don't soon get a few million
dollars and a Kombi van filled with nubile groupies, I'll be mightily
miffed.

Regards,
Mark

P.S. I guess this format could also be used for subjects other than IT.

-- 

Mark Kelly

mark at vceit.com
http://vceit.com

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