Other games and strategies

Identifying “Plot holes in history” as a revision strategy

Overview During revision time, get students to review the course by challenging them to determine the most outlandish coincidences and unlikely events they [...]

27th March 2018

“Design the exam question from hell” for higher-order revision

Overview One of the best ways to prepare students for examinations is to get them to design their own questions using the established format of past exam [...]

29th November 2017

Making “Top Trumps” work in the classroom: use WORDS, not RATINGS

Overview Because “Top Trumps” is a simply game format to understand and play, this does not necessarily translate into an educationally [...]

8th October 2017

Triominoes Revision

Overview Here’s a great idea from Karen Knight (@KKNTeachLearn) that was shared to the #historyteacher hashtag on Twitter recently: Taking it further [...]

8th October 2017

Using “unlock the chest!” puzzles to develop out-of-class learning

Overview Obtain a date padlock (day / month / year), and set it to the exact date of a particular historical event. Use this to lock a chest, inside of [...]

18th September 2017

Alphabet Challenge: know the topic from A-Z!

Overview Challenge students to produce a list of words from A-Z, each of which has something to do with the topic being consolidated or revised. If time is [...]

10th January 2017

How to help students design educational board games

4th January 2017

“Tell us something we don’t know!”: A quiz to develop deeper understanding

Overview For examination subjects, content is king. Without a secure bedrock of factual knowledge, analysis cannot be attempted and evaluation and [...]

9th December 2016

Add a ‘how certain are you?’ element to spice up factual tests

Overview To spice up factual tests, require students not merely to provide an answer, but to choose how many points to play for to reflect their [...]

16th October 2016

Gamification of Revision: Snooker and Battleships

7th May 2016

Share all possible test questions in advance to encourage focused revision

Sharing a long list of possible questions with students in advance of a test in exam conditions is a simple way of ensuring their revision and reflection [...]

29th November 2015

Dice and Card Game Strategies for Revising Key Terms

To encourage students to revise key terminology more effectively, give them advance notice that their knowledge will be tested using one of the following [...]

27th April 2015

Spot the Mistakes!

It is always an effective revision technique to provide students with model answers after they have completed an examination-style test (for example, a [...]

31st March 2015

“Who / Where / What Am I?” Revision Game

This is a great team quiz game that I often use during Year 11 and Year 13 revision sessions. Students have to design their own questions, think about the [...]

13th March 2015

“Guess Who?” as a meaningful revision game

7th February 2015

Challenge Grid

A simple twist on a factual test. Colour code different questions in a grid by difficulty. Students choose which questions to answer in the time available [...]

1st February 2015

Tic Tac Know

31st January 2015

Jenga Revision

31st January 2015