The review game

The idea is to basically have ``fun" reviewing the quiz questions that students seem to repeatedly get wrong, say in preparation for the midterm and/or final:

1. Gather up all quizzes from the previous classes, and print out the quiz questions and their answers.
2. Divide the class into teams. Teams of two seemed to work in one small class, but groups of four also worked. Groups of three seem problematic from a sociological point of view.

Assuming there are two teams:

1. Give one team all the quiz questions and only half of the answers. Give the other team all the quiz questions and the other half of the answers.
2. The teams start by reviewing their quiz questions and the answers they are given. They also make sure that they can answer the questions they do not have an answer to. On top of that, they need to make sure they understand the answers. This study time can be long but, after all, it is a review session. If the quizzes are very long, one might consider subdividing the quiz questions so that only a subset is studied on each round.

The TA is the moderator, i.e., game-show host. A round of the ``game" proceeds as follows:

1. Team A asks team B a question from the quiz questions. Team B has 30 seconds (timed by the TA) to answer it. After the 30 seconds team B needs to answer the question. If they can't answer it, then team A gets a point by giving the answer from their answer sheet. However, if team B thinks that team A does not understand the answer, then team B can challenge team A to explain it. If team A can explain it, then team A gets double the points. If they can't, then no points are exchanged, and the TA needs to explain the answer.
2. At the end, the points are tallied and a winner is declared. The fact that there are teams allows for struggling students to hide in their team so that they don't get overly embarrassed.

The game can use some adjustments to maximize learning and increase the fun. In one class, the game the groups continued on their own, while the TA helped other students. Some students prefer to study on their own or work on extra credits. But those that played the game seemed to learn, and they liked playing it. Ideally, the game players would go to another room to play this game so that they don't disturb others -- note that no computers are needed to play this game.