Kluth

Particularly useful for students who have problems gathering or organizing information on their own. When students in the expert groups feel that they have thoroughly learned their portion of the material, they plan a few strategies and perhaps even create materials for teaching it to their original base group. Students then return to their original base groups and each student teaches his or her material to the others. In this way, all students in the classroom learn all of the material. Adaptations that can be made to Jigsaw include the following:

• Have students break out into expert groups with a partner (be sure to adjust the number of expert groups accordingly).
• Give all or some of the students the materials necessary to present their ideas to the base group.
• Allow students to present their learnings in a variety of ways (e.g., role plays, drawings, gestures).

Games

Using games is another way teachers can involve all learners, teach new skills, and give students opportunities to participate in a variety of ways. Games tend to be fun and nonthreatening. When teachers use games, they provide students with “opportunities to treat each other in prosocial, desirable ways,” say nice things to one another, and work actively to include each other (Sapon-Shevin, 1999, p. 27). Although teachers in the elementary classroom often use games, educators in secondary school classrooms often abandon these approaches in place of more didactic and traditional strategies. Secondary teachers may be apprehensive about using games because they believe that this type of activity will squander important classroom time and diminish curriculum and instruction. In contrast, the creative and effective use of games can boost the participation and interest of students, help teachers make curriculum relevant and more comprehensible, and make abstract concepts concrete (Marzano, 2010). All of the games outlined here are appropriate for students of any age.

Walk It to Know It

Walk It to Know It (Udvari-Solner & Kluth, 2007) is a useful tool for enhancing understanding for students who are visual and kinesthetic learners. To prepare for this game, teachers or students design flow charts on paper and then transfer each square to a separate piece of poster board or butcher paper. Then the squares are laid out on the classroom floor and all students walk through the sequence. Teachers might have students explain each step as they walk over it or simply have them read the information on the board or paper aloud. Students might trod over the charts one time or move through them several times over the period of a week or month. Teachers might make charts to teach any number of concepts including the scientific method, steps to solving a binomial equation, or the parts of a business plan. Students also can walk through a timeline or a sequence of events chain. Students tend to enjoy Walk It to Know It because it gives them an opportunity to get out of their seats. A lack of movement during the school day can cause some learners to be restless or anxious. It also can be detrimental to learning. Patterson (1997) pointed out that many kinesthetic activities allow students to see a more complete picture of the subject matter and free them from learning inhibitions. These activities also often produce long-term rather than short-term recall (Patterson, 1997). Students with autism who need a lot of movement, especially those who need occasional “walking breaks,” may be especially attracted to this game.

Adaptations to Walk It to Know It include the following:

• Ask students to chant the words on each square as they step on them. This will help some learners retain the information more effectively.
• Show students to add movements to each square so they are not only “traveling” through the content but acting it out as well.
• Let students hop through the sequence. Adding this extra bit of movement can give some students an opportunity to release energy in a constructive way.

Match Game

Match Game allows students to teach each other. To play, the teacher distributes a card to each student. The teacher needs two groups of cards (A and B); each card in one group (A) must have a matching card in the other group (B). For instance, the teacher might create one group of questions (A) and one group of answers (B); one group of words (A) and one group of definitions (B); or one group of incomplete sentences (A) and one group of words that complete the sentences (B). Every student is given one index card and told to walk around the room, talking to other students and comparing cards. Students are directed to help each other find their matches. Once students have found the individual whose card is a match for theirs, they should sit together.

Adaptations to Match Game include the following:

• Have some students participate in creating the cards; this will be especially rewarding for a student who has particular expertise on a subject.
• Encourage students to support each other during the game; remind them that they can help classmates find matches.
• Add pictures or icons to the cards if some students learn better this way.

The Company You Keep

The Company You Keep, a fast-paced and entertaining game created by Mel Silberman (1996), is appropriate as an ice breaker, an introduction to new material, or a review. To prepare for this activity, the teacher makes a list of categories helpful for teaching or reviewing certain content. Each category should include at least two (if not more) “sides,” opinions, or items so that in choosing to affiliate themselves with certain choices, students can form themselves in subgroups. Content areas and categories might include the following:

• Social studies: Agree or disagree with capital punishment.
• Math: Do or do not understand how to measure angles.
• English: Favorite character from the young-adult novel An Audience for Einstein (Wakely, 2005).
• Geography: Spanish-speaking nation you would most like to visit.

The Company You Keep is ideal for the diverse classroom in that it offers movement and action for students who need to get away from their desks. It gives quiet students structured opportunities to interact and social students time to talk with their classmates. Social skills also can be taught during this activity. Students with autism might be able to practice greeting people or asking or answering verbal questions.

Adaptations to The Company You Keep include the following:

• Give students different roles during the activity; some might lead the activity while others walk around facilitating the forming of groups.
• Write the prompts on the board so that students can hear and see choices.
• Ask students to sit down together or to link arms once groups have formed so that all students can clearly see where the different groups are. Groups might even be asked to hold up a sign indicating the name of their cluster.

What Is It?

What Is It? is a perfect game for injecting laughter into a lesson and for encouraging students to take small risks in front of the group. This game begins with the teacher placing an object in front of the room and asking the group, “What is it?” He or she then encourages students to come forward and transform the object into something related to class content. One student can approach at a time and act out a short scene. He or she can tell the others what they are doing and how they are using the object or students can yell out guesses. For example, a high school English teacher might present a roll of paper towels to the class and challenge students to act out idioms and colloquialisms. One student might grab on to the end of the roll to illustrate “out on a limb” or pass a towel around the classroom to act out “passing the buck.” Typically, the more ridiculous the skits are, the better, and the only rule is that students must wait for one student to set the object down before standing up to take a turn. You can have students get up to participate on their own; you can have them raise hands to take turns; or you can have learners pass the object to each other randomly, giving individuals an opportunity to pass if they do not have an idea. After the game, the teacher might give additional information about the performances or even act a few out himself or herself.

Adaptations to What Is It? include the following:

• Give some students time to rehearse their “transformations.”
• Invite students to come to act out their scenes in pairs or in small groups.
• Show the object and have students brainstorm ideas for transforming the object on paper before attempting to act out a scene.

Human Treasure Hunt

Human Treasure Hunt requires every student to gather information by interacting with several different classmates. Each student receives a worksheet with a list of prompts (e.g., “Find a person who knows how to draw the carbon cycle and ask him or her to demonstrate this skill for you”). The objective is for students to find an answer to every prompt on their form. Those who finish early should circulate and offer support to those still working or go back to their desks and design new prompts to be answered. There are only two rules for this game: 1) Students can only get one answer from each peer and/or participant; and 2) If a student gets an answer from another student, he or she needs to give an answer to that other student. Teachers may also want to insist that students answer each question only a certain number of times. Human Treasure Hunts can include simple (e.g., label, list) and complex (e.g., compare/contrast) questions, personal questions, questions related to content, or questions that are both personal and content-related (e.g., ‘Find a person who will write you a Haiku about his or her family”). It is fairly easy to create hunts that allow students to discuss curriculum while sharing something personal at the same time.

Adaptations to Human Treasure Hunt include the following:

• Allow students to travel.
• Have a few students serve as “hunt helpers”—their job is to walk around and offer assistance to students who are struggling to complete their forms.
• Let students generate their own items. If a peer cannot answer a question verbally, his or her classmate can invent one that can be answered with a gesture, for example.

Service Learning

Service learning blends thoughtfully planned service or volunteer work with critical reflection and opportunities to meet educational goals (Gent, 2009). Having students collect canned goods for the local food pantry is not service learning; it is a nice deed. If, however, students in a Food Science class study hunger in America, examine the problem locally by talking to people at the pantry, engage in research related to specific areas of need, create healthful and tasty recipes, and a recipe book based on the foods most often available at the pantry, publish and distribute the book, elicit feedback on it, reflect on the process and discuss how grassroots work can affect a community, that would qualify as service learning.

Service learning opportunities such as the one described here are valuable for so many reasons; they allow students to participate in projects with tangible outcomes, make decisions, speak and be heard, inspire and create change, and achieve recognition (Gent, 2009; Schine & Halsted, 1997). In addition, service learning provides many opportunities for differentiating instruction because there are typically various tasks to complete, angles to study, and ideas to explore in a single project. Because students with disabilities, linguistically diverse backgrounds, and "at-risk" labels often receive services within schools and communities (Grassi et al., 2004; Morris, 1992), educators are especially interested in introducing service learning to these populations. These students not only often thrive given opportunities to provide services but can develop positive identities as a result.