Although some students may not enjoy lecture-style learning, most students do enjoy classroom games. Games are a great way to solidify facts and concepts in students' minds. Use different types of games to play to students' learning strengths, whether they are visual, auditory or kinesthetic learners.
Summary of Learning Styles
Most students learn in one of three ways. Visual learners take in information through their eyes and benefit from simple blackboard games, especially those that include charts, graphs and schema. Auditory or audial learners learn by hearing and benefit from verbal trivia games. Kinesthetic learners interact with their learning subject through motion; these students value games that allow them to physically demonstrate a concept rather than just saying or writing it. Some students combine more than one of these learning styles and thus can be categorized as visual-auditory, auditory-kinesthetic, visual-kinesthetic or visual-auditory-kinesthetic.
Visual Learning Games
Hold blackboard pop quiz competitions, offering a prize for the person who answers the largest number of questions correctly. Tape cards with historical events on the blackboard and have the visual or kinesthetic learner rearrange them according to chronology. For vocabulary words, give one member of the class sculpting clay and have him sculpt an object related to the word for the class to guess. Leave the sculptures in a visible part of the classroom so that the visual learners can use them to review.
Auditory Learning Games
Pique auditory learners' interest by replicating games they have already seen on popular television shows. Jeopardy, for example, is a simple game to make and popular with students. Create the game board on your overhead projector, creating a five-by-five grid. Write the category names at the top of each of the five columns, and fill in the grid with dollar amounts $100, $200, $300, $400 and $500, respectively, written from top to bottom. Have an answer written down in a notebook that corresponds with each of the squares; you should have 25 answers in all, five for each category. The students must then guess the question. For example, "Answer: A war fought between the Allied and Axis Powers" would elicit the following response in form of a question: "What is World War II?" As the game progresses, place small squares of paper over the dollar amounts that have already used.
Kinesthetic Learning Games
Consider holding some competitive science experiments. Have the class grow plants, for example, and see which fertilizer grows the tallest stem and why. Hold a paper airplane contest as you teach your class about aerodynamics. Give prizes for the most beautiful airplane, the most graceful loops and the airplane that flies the longest distance.
Tags: Learning Games, benefit from, dollar amounts, have already, students enjoy
