Why jeopardy in the classroom

For simplicities sake these issues are going to be split into two different categories, functional and social, and will be discussed in that order.

There are many of these little problems that an educator has to face in order to best provide the active gaming learning experience that their students deserve, and while it may seem a daunting task these sort of obstacles must be overcome if a teacher wishes to provide a diverse, engaging learning experience for their students; and with the constant progression of technologies the experience is becoming easier to provide.

Any curriculum created must be tailored to the members of the class it is meant to be provided to for maximum effect, and that rule is no different for interactive games. These type of detrimental effects can affect the individual as much as it can the class as a whole, and requires intimate teacher regulation of the game to prevent distraction or confusion. On top of all this, most educational games, especially Jeopardy, are competitive in nature. While this can certainly be an incentive for some participants, and get them even more involved in a friendly game, there is also the ever present concern that the competitive atmosphere created will have the opposite effect on other students.

The pressure to win, or the fear of losing, can be extremely destructive to the learning experience of some students especially those that are perhaps deterred by competition , which of course defeats the purpose of the fun, low tension learning activity that was implied by the game Webb et al.

Any learning activity taught in school must be beneficial to all students taking part in it. If a student is obtaining less of a benefit from the activity or none at all , whatever that reason may be, it is the responsibility of their teacher to intervene and change the activity so as to better provide for that student. In contrast, one of the major benefits to games such as Jeopardy is that they can provide a greater level of engagement and satisfaction for students, which is of great importance to educators.

Positive satisfaction of materials can promote further involvement by students in academics, and those students who have a positive experience with a certain topic are potentially more likely to continue pursuit of that topic in the future Afari et al.

To discern this and other factors, a study performed by Afari et al. A jeopardy style game was used on 90 of these participants, and the remainder were provided with a standard lecture presentation to measure the differences in the results of both teaching methods.

According to Afari et al. Another, yet similar, study performed by Webb et al. While this study had significantly less participants, students in this study still reported higher learner satisfaction, and an improvement when working with their peers.

Overall, for both studies, the results seem positive to the use of Jeopardy as a studying aid in classrooms, and thusly support the idea that provided care is taken upon implementation of a game it can be an extremely positive influence on student motivation and moral. In both of the studies referenced before Afari et al. This paper has already briefly touched on the effects on student involvement that games can provide, especially as a studying activity, but when combined with some sort of personal incentive a miniscule amount of extra-credit can suffice the competitive nature can provide striking results motivation; and consequently retention.

The subsequent environment created, provided it is properly managed to include all participants, can improve student attitudes, and decreases stress for any upcoming test the reason you would use such a Jeopardy system.

In the pre-test post-test study performed by Webb et al. In comparison to those who did not participate in the jeopardy game whose average score was While admittedly studies of this nature are still rather new, it does seem that alternative forms of interactive curriculum such as games has some serious merit towards academic retention, and should be highly considered for use.

In conclusion, while there is room for improvement on the studies used, and further studies in the future, the merits of Games such as Jeopardy should at least be a little clearer now. If you're covering this material in class, use "weathering" as an answer to a geoscience process question or create an entire category about it. You can create content-driven questions across all class content areas and in all grade levels. Not only does the Jeopardy format lead to engagement, but it may also help to motivate your learners.

The students are competing to win the highest number of points. The competition factor motivates your students to succeed and demonstrate mastery over the material. In a study of Jeopardy-type games and grammar lessons, the students who learned by playing had better learning results than those who had the traditional lecture-based classes, according to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's Journalism and Mass Communications department.

To maximize students' success, keep the game competitive, in a friendly way. Keep scores, praise the participants and possibly offer an age-appropriate prize. For example, the top three first-graders receive stickers, or the winner in your seventh-grade class gets five extra credit points. Don't assume that your students already know the Jeopardy game rules. Familiarize them with the answer-question format and the rules first, according to Educational Insight's "Classroom Jeopardy Teacher's Guide.

It is the student's job to come up with the actual question. Give the students examples first such as, "I will say secondary colors. You must reply 'What are orange, purple and green? Based in Pittsburgh, Erica Loop has been writing education, child development and parenting articles since She has a Master of Science in applied developmental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education.

Regardless of how old we are, we never stop learning.