Best+Practices+for+US1

I have been experimenting with new ways to help my students prepare for exams. Here is a Jeopardy styled game I developed after being inspired by an activity I saw Cara facilitate. Here's how it works. 1) The class competes as a team to try to reach a collective goal. In the attached example, the goal is 1800 points. 2) I select a student who gets to pick a question, e.g. "Legal rights for 200." I then read the question to the class twice. 3) The class has 70 seconds to write an answer in a complete sentence. The student who chose the question has an opportunity to win 200 points for her class if she answers the question correctly in a complete sentence. If the student answers incorrectly, I pick a random name from a hat for a rebound opportunity. If the second student answers the questions correctly, the class still earns the points. If he/she answer the questions incorrectly, the class loses the points and we move on to the next question.
 * First check out the .ppt attached

Notes: -Requiring students to answer in compete sentences helps develop their speaking skills, and is typically part of my language objective. -Jeopardy themed music really improves the game. This is what Marcus would call a "smoke and mirrors" effect that further engages students. -Allowing students to pick categories adds to their investment in the game. -Making students write down their answers in complete sentences allows for students to use the activity as a future study tool. I give students a classwork grade for recording correct answers in their ISN. I typically have students copy down a blank jeopardy chart and record their answers in each respective box. -I usually tell students the ISN page number where they can find the answer to the question. I do this because half of my freshmen really struggle with memory retention. Also, one of my goals for teaching freshmen is to get students to use their notes to study for tests. -I sometimes split the class in half and have them compete against each other. I once did a boys v. girls competition and the students loved it. -For my ninth graders who struggle turning questions into answers, I will create sentence stems for each answer. For example I would turn the question into a sentence stem by doing the following: "What five rights are protected by the first amendment?" -> "Five rights protected by the first amendment are..." -Brian

I am a bit obsessed with graphic organizers. Marcus, check out the four I created for our last unit on the birth of political parties. -Brian