I am by no means an expert in this topic but I have been experimenting with it a few years. I've avoided traditional games in this list such as Chess, Connect 4, Chinese checkers, Draughts, Backgammon as these form the basis of school games clubs.
Here is my list of alternative games played successfully with students:
Simple Games:
Collossal Arena (~$35, 30 mins, six players) Students bet against gladiators. Students have to evaluate diminishing odds when placing bets and simultaneously use a variety of special abilities to eliminate rival gladiators.
For Sale (~$40, 10 mins, six players) A game where students purchase property at auction and then sell them to each other. Students need to evaluate what is left to be purchased and then try to estimate the best moment to put them on the market.
Set (~$25, 10 mins, six players) Students need to identify sets based on multiple criteria before other students find them. A simple game that uses many of the skills found in visual IQ tests.
Lupus in Tabula (~$20, 10 mins, up to 16 players) Students try and guess who the werewolf is. Students are accused and try and convince others that they are not the werewolf. A great way to introduce polls and tallies within the class.
Apples to Apples (~$50, 30 mins, up to 10 players) Hard to explain but fun if not taken seriously.
Ticket to Ride Europe (~$70, 1 hr, 5 players) Students build networks of track to connect destinations. Students that build the most effective networks win.
Citadels (~$35, 45 mins, 5 players) Students use roles to build their citadel whilst trying to stop their fellow students from doing the same.
Carcassonne (~$40, 30 mins, 3 players) Students accrue points by laying tiles and selecting optimal point scoring opportunities from multiple options.
Nuclear War (~$50, 30 mins, 5 players) What is better than blowing each other up? Blowing each other up with nuclear weapons.. Beware this game has the worst components ever, be prepared to laminate and find card sleeves.
BattleLine (~$30, 30 mins, 2 players) Two players use poker sets to try and win 5 hands. Special cards change the game in a variety of ways.
Dixit (~$40, 30 mins, 6 players) Players use their imagination to get students to guess which card is theirs. A great investigation into grey areas as black and white answers do not get points.
Say Anything (~$40, 30 mins, 6 players) Similar to Apples to Apples but easier to understand by students. Have to enforce a G rating on answers or the game gets out of control.
More complex games (require multiple sessions):
Space Hulk (~$200, >2 hrs, 2 players) I wouldn't suggest buying this for a class, but if you have a copy the students enjoy it. The miniatures take hours to paint but the end product is well worth it.
Claustrophobia (~$70, 1 hr, 2 players) The game to play when you can't play Space Hulk.
Battle Lore ($100, >2 hrs, 2 players) A skirmish game where students line up two forces and try and defeat each other. Students have to concentrate to get their forces into battle critical moments.
Smallworld (~70, 1 hr, 4 players) Students use a variety of races to control the largest area of a map.
Indonesia ($100, 2hrs+, 4 players) A game where students use stock techniques to manage shipping, mergers and acquisitions of wheat, rice, oil and spice companies.
These games can all be researched further on Boardgamegeek. Many can be purchased locally at Tactics in Perth, or online (cheaper but with shipping delays) at Milsims, from unhalfbricking, or from PinnacleGames.
Russ.
(Updated 24/4/2011)
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Promotion to incompetence
Promotion is one of the hardest parts of management and shows where a lack of career counselling can affect a whole organisation. Teaching is no different to many professions where perfectly good(and in some instances great) employees ask for promotion into roles that they are clearly unsuitable for.
Administration roles in teaching carry pay scales above teachers and therefore attract teachers into the role. These roles tend to accumulate all the detritus that teachers don't want (or can't) do. When these roles attract a capable person, the whole school runs more smoothly. This is not an exaggeration, it is a statement of fact. The sad story though is that these roles are typically the ones on paths to promotion so also fail to be stable.
I have no problem with promotional pathways per se (and good staff should be promoted), but I have a problem when people are put into them that are unsuitable. Conflicts seem inevitable, skill sets are sorely lacking and a lack of understanding of what the role entails occurs due to poor internal job descriptions. People bring their own slant to the role upsetting a whole system that works. A clear lack of understanding of how change management occurs (and when these positions are temporary and will revert to the incumbent) and it becomes just another load placed on teachers.
My favourite fails from promoted staff are: managing teachers as students, the I'm right despite all evidence to the contrary statement, aggressive behaviour (oh my goodness, for this there is no excuse from a manager), the I'll disregard your experience because I know this is a better decision(without evidence) and the inevitable push back of work to the classroom.
With state schools paring down due to reduced numbers, the pool of capable people is clearly reducing placing further stress on capable administrators. I'm sure we'll hear the "innovative solutions" mantra reappear, which will translate to mean"do more with less". Saying that, it's also a time of opportunity "if" situations can be identified that will not impact on teaching roles too greatly.
It's at times like these that I think the old HoD role had advantages. Discipline, year leader and curriculum was shared amongst HoDs; administrative roles (below deputy) were clerical and did not call forth large salaries because they were not highly skilled. Staff that could not handle discipline and curriculum could not do HoD roles, those that could were respected within the school as they were sorely needed parts of a working wheel. The capable staff then went on to Deputy and Principal roles (garnering management skills slowly on the way), were less subject to fads (had a healthy dose of scepticism "built in" that required proof of concept before implementation), demanded an understanding of progress in each classroom and enjoyed coming back to the classroom to fill in from time to time.
Staff that have worked effectively in HoD roles are effective educators (whether in English, Phys Ed (no matter how we tease them), in the shed or in Math). I would much rather see these paths further developed than the flat management (treating teaching as a profession without professional pay scales) strategy currently used in many mid/small public schools encouraging staff away from the classroom.
Russ.
Administration roles in teaching carry pay scales above teachers and therefore attract teachers into the role. These roles tend to accumulate all the detritus that teachers don't want (or can't) do. When these roles attract a capable person, the whole school runs more smoothly. This is not an exaggeration, it is a statement of fact. The sad story though is that these roles are typically the ones on paths to promotion so also fail to be stable.
I have no problem with promotional pathways per se (and good staff should be promoted), but I have a problem when people are put into them that are unsuitable. Conflicts seem inevitable, skill sets are sorely lacking and a lack of understanding of what the role entails occurs due to poor internal job descriptions. People bring their own slant to the role upsetting a whole system that works. A clear lack of understanding of how change management occurs (and when these positions are temporary and will revert to the incumbent) and it becomes just another load placed on teachers.
My favourite fails from promoted staff are: managing teachers as students, the I'm right despite all evidence to the contrary statement, aggressive behaviour (oh my goodness, for this there is no excuse from a manager), the I'll disregard your experience because I know this is a better decision(without evidence) and the inevitable push back of work to the classroom.
With state schools paring down due to reduced numbers, the pool of capable people is clearly reducing placing further stress on capable administrators. I'm sure we'll hear the "innovative solutions" mantra reappear, which will translate to mean"do more with less". Saying that, it's also a time of opportunity "if" situations can be identified that will not impact on teaching roles too greatly.
It's at times like these that I think the old HoD role had advantages. Discipline, year leader and curriculum was shared amongst HoDs; administrative roles (below deputy) were clerical and did not call forth large salaries because they were not highly skilled. Staff that could not handle discipline and curriculum could not do HoD roles, those that could were respected within the school as they were sorely needed parts of a working wheel. The capable staff then went on to Deputy and Principal roles (garnering management skills slowly on the way), were less subject to fads (had a healthy dose of scepticism "built in" that required proof of concept before implementation), demanded an understanding of progress in each classroom and enjoyed coming back to the classroom to fill in from time to time.
Staff that have worked effectively in HoD roles are effective educators (whether in English, Phys Ed (no matter how we tease them), in the shed or in Math). I would much rather see these paths further developed than the flat management (treating teaching as a profession without professional pay scales) strategy currently used in many mid/small public schools encouraging staff away from the classroom.
Russ.
Labels:
administration
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Summer School Day 4
Due to unforeseen circumstances I find myself at home instead of at summer school since day 1. Although frustrating, it has given me time to ponder why I consider it an important part of each year.
These I think are the main reasons:
1. It gives me an excuse to investigate areas of the curriculum in detail and develop my understanding of a topic
2. It provides time to interact with other mathematics teachers and gain insight into their motivation, teaching methods and knowledge
3. It's a great time to spend with the kids outside the pressure cooker that is TEE (and I know we're supposed to call it WACE now, but the pressure of L3 WACE is far different to level 1 & 2) and gain that rapport that helps when you have to give them a nudge to get over the finish line.
4. It's a time where you can develop method/pedagogy and style and measure results in an environment where you are not going to leave yourself weeks behind if it doesn't work.
5. You can work on the motivational, career oriented, aspirational and inspirational components of students rather than just focus on curriculum.
Russ.
These I think are the main reasons:
1. It gives me an excuse to investigate areas of the curriculum in detail and develop my understanding of a topic
2. It provides time to interact with other mathematics teachers and gain insight into their motivation, teaching methods and knowledge
3. It's a great time to spend with the kids outside the pressure cooker that is TEE (and I know we're supposed to call it WACE now, but the pressure of L3 WACE is far different to level 1 & 2) and gain that rapport that helps when you have to give them a nudge to get over the finish line.
4. It's a time where you can develop method/pedagogy and style and measure results in an environment where you are not going to leave yourself weeks behind if it doesn't work.
5. You can work on the motivational, career oriented, aspirational and inspirational components of students rather than just focus on curriculum.
Russ.
Labels:
summer school
Monday, January 17, 2011
Summer school day 1
Today was the first day of summer school and what a great bunch. We worked on some areas that have caused difficulties in past years...
1. Fractional indicies and how to simplify where the numerator of the index is greater than one or where the index is negative.
2. Graphing a variety of different functions
3. Domain and range of a variety of functions
4. Odd and even functions
5. Piecewise functions and domain/range
6. Counting techniques and associated proofs
From an IT point of view it's great to use tools (such as slideshows) and make them highly interactive through joint presentations with other presenters. The students seem to enjoy the change in venue too! Students were actively challenging each other to speak up when they didn't understand and demanding more information when an explanation was incomplete.
A productive day!
1. Fractional indicies and how to simplify where the numerator of the index is greater than one or where the index is negative.
2. Graphing a variety of different functions
3. Domain and range of a variety of functions
4. Odd and even functions
5. Piecewise functions and domain/range
6. Counting techniques and associated proofs
From an IT point of view it's great to use tools (such as slideshows) and make them highly interactive through joint presentations with other presenters. The students seem to enjoy the change in venue too! Students were actively challenging each other to speak up when they didn't understand and demanding more information when an explanation was incomplete.
A productive day!
Labels:
summer school
Friday, January 14, 2011
Summer School 2010/2011
Summer school is about to start again when we get our year 10->11 and year 11->12 students ready for level 3 subjects. It was interesting to hear the students volunteering this year and plaguing us to run it so lets hope they turn up.
A whole week of students and just maths. Who would have guessed it would have been successful?
I wish I could find our slides from last year!
A whole week of students and just maths. Who would have guessed it would have been successful?
I wish I could find our slides from last year!
Labels:
summer school
IOTY 2010 Winner
And the Idiot of the Year 2010 goes to our perennial winner
... (drum roll please) ...
.... Julia Gillard .....
...for her ongoing support of the myschool website, the diabolical national curriculum rollout, computers in schools schemes and her support for the complete an utter waste of money during the GFC on school rebuilding.
Oh, and please do us a favour Julia, get out of the way and let Ms Bligh do her job... although they might need you around soon with your unending bag of cash.
Congratulations Julia!
... (drum roll please) ...
.... Julia Gillard .....
...for her ongoing support of the myschool website, the diabolical national curriculum rollout, computers in schools schemes and her support for the complete an utter waste of money during the GFC on school rebuilding.
Oh, and please do us a favour Julia, get out of the way and let Ms Bligh do her job... although they might need you around soon with your unending bag of cash.
Congratulations Julia!
Labels:
IOTY
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Funny Quote.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Albert Einstein
Labels:
funny
Visitors Poll
Who are you?!! I'm interested. The first person that says West Australians are actually Australian obviously doesn't live here :-)
Russ.
Russ.
Labels:
statistics
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