My friends and I used to play team trivia. The place we went to was known for having the hardest trivia in the area. We often placed in the top 3, so we were pretty proud of ourselves. Unfortunately, we stopped going since, you know, life happens.
I decided to play team trivia with my classes! It is a great way to review a unit before a test. The format is as follows: There are 4 rounds of 3 questions (this can change based on how long you have to play, or how fast you move through the questions - for real Team Trivia we had 5 rounds of 5). The questions consist of a variety of topics that we have covered that chapter. Now, for my High School Spanish class, I included vocab, grammar, and cultural information that we discussed in class. The vocab and grammar were straight forward, they either got it correct or they didn't. I was mean and looked for every little detail - should there be an accent? Is it one letter off? Then NO! But the cultural stuff was basically seeing if they retained any of the random facts I spewed or that they read or discussed in class. One example would be, Which country is famous for creating paella? If they remember that we read a story about paella, then they might remember that it's from Spain! It really separates the average from the excellent.
Speaking of average vs excellent students, I picked the teams. I did a count off, and the grouping worked out to be fairly equally able teams. You can also assign teams based on an arrangement you picked ahead of time.
Scoring is 5 points per answer. I purposely included a couple of questions that had multiple correct answers and they got 5 points for each correct answer. It is not an all-or-nothing scenario, so incorrect answers were simply disregarded and correct ones were counted. I had to keep track of the scores on a separate piece of paper. I announced the scores at the end of each round.
For the final round, I announced scores and asked the teams to wager as much or as little of their score as they wanted. I told them the format of the final question - they needed to translate an entire compound sentence, using the vocabulary and grammar of the chapter. I made sure no hints beyond that were given. Then after they submitted their wager, I gave them the sentence, and they submitted their response. Again, I was nit-picky. Most teams end up with 0 points, but that's the risk with wagering! I chose not to have a time limit, although I did apply pressure if a team was being particularly slow. Having a time limit is, of course, an option.
How did the students submit their answers? I used Socrative. For those who have not used Socrative, it is an app and website where a teacher can create a quiz, and then students sign in using the app on their phones or iPads, and you get live feedback. I created a quiz with 15 short answer questions and I did not enter any possible correct answers. Each team only had to use 1 iPad for all their answers. Since the app makes them sign in with a name, they can create a team name. Then question by question, they would enter their guesses. Even the wager at the end was entered as a question, as well as the sentence translation. This way, their answers are nice and neat and there's no question about what they are writing. If you do not have electronic devices in the classroom, then a piece of paper works just fine. You can do question by question submission, or have them submit it at the end of every round, your choice.
I asked the students for feedback after we finished playing. Most enjoyed it a lot. They appreciated playing something different. The biggest complaint was not being able to pick teams, but I stand by my reasoning. Other than that, there were no real negative comments about the game. I think it's a winner!
