Learning & Teaching >> Some Thinking Games for Scientists
Scientists need to be able to:
• think effectively
• communicate what they think
• understand why they think this and how they arrived at this position
The following games, called ICEBREAKER and CONUNDRUM, are designed to encourage pupils to develop these three sets of skills.
Icebreaker - a game for use with a data projector. No interactive whiteboard is needed.
Pupils are asked to consider four alternatives and to pick the odd one out. It helps if there are a number of justifiable answers that they might choose, depending on their point of view. If there is an obvious right answer pupils are unlikely to discuss and disagree.
In the example given pupils consider burning cardboard, melting candlewax, baking bread and firing a pot. You may ask pupils to discuss and decide in pairs, then form fours and compare answers/reasons. Finally the teacher can lead a whole class discussion, revealing alternative ideas and exploring the reasons, drawing out of pupils how they arrived that the answer.
Some teachers prefer to get the pupils to produce the games for use by the rest of the class.
The game is easily editable. Just click in each of the four textboxes in turn and overwrite the words or phrases with your own choices. When you close the PowerPoint you will be offered the option to save the changes. You can then choose an appropriate name for the activity and save it wherever you wish.
The conundrum is a similar task, but instead of presenting four options from which pupils can choose an 'odd-one-out' they are now provided with a 'big question' to stimulate thinking and discussion. Once again you can overtype the current question with one of your own choosing.
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Icebreaker | 27 KB |
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Conundrum | 84 KB |