The Amazingly Educational Race

The Amazingly Educational Race is a framework for a team-based competition that can be applied to any content and any grade level for which the teach feels his/her students could handle the activities. Based around the wildly-popular TV show, my version takes an educational spin, utilizing small-scale activities as parts of the competition. Before the first day of the competition, I tried to drum up interest and anticipation by creating A brief 1-minute trailer, which could be used in any content or grade level, as well.

The basic idea is that students are placed in groups (or are already in groups, such as in the case with my gamified class’s factions). These groups would be best if limited to about five students, for the sake of involvement, and probably should be at least three, if not four. If you’re familiar with the show, you might know that there are weekly episodes, which are each one “leg” of the race. There is a staring point and an ending point. This ending point is referred to as a “Pit Stop.” Arriving to the Pit Stop as the last team usually results in a team being eliminated from the competition, though there are some episodes which end in the final-finishing team finding out it was a non-elimination leg. Rather than eliminating any teams, The Amazingly Educational Race is a race against time, with the least total time, after all the legs are complete, being the determining factor. (This is at least the plan right now, we’ll see how it goes - I want to make the last leg as exciting and competitive as possible). There are also rewards for the team/faction that finishes each particular leg of the race first.

Now, you might be wondering just what a leg of the race looks like? Well, at my school, where I teach 8th grade language arts, we have periods that are about 45 minutes long. After a bell ringer, attendance, and typical housekeeping items, that means I’m left with no longer than 40 minutes for class or my lesson. As a result, my legs of the Amazingly Educational Race end up having 2 tasks, known as Road Blocks, and two times where students have to go out of the room to find some type of game-related materials.

Each team picks two team members to participate in the first Road Block competition. These two representatives are the only team members who can talk, touch the activity, puzzle, or write on the task paper. All other group members are encouraged to point at things, mouth words, or use other creative techniques, but they cannot tan talk or manipulate the task in any way.

The two representatives from each team receive an envelope containing the first Road Block activity. There is a Road Block slip that dictates the task and also contains any necessary materials. In the case of the Road Block below, students received that slip and the envelope also had 27 slips of paper, each with one word, and 17 of those words were either conjunctions or conjunctive adverbs. (This topic is one that students had been exposed to, had lessons on, and had practiced - in this case, all through NoRedInk.com.)

Once all the teams had their envelopes, I signaled for teams to begin, they took the contents of the envelope, and the two team reps got to work. Once they finished, they had to raise their hands and I came over to check it. If it was incorrectly done, I simply said it wasn’t right, and they got back to work, trying to figure out what they hadn’t done or did wrong. If the team’s work was correct, I gave them the “Route Info” slip, shown below.

At that point, all group members were allowed to talk. In the case of this Route slip, one student who just participated in the Road Block had to go into the halls, to the correct place, and bring back the slip outside of the room (Mrs. Jackson’s room). That slip is labeled Road Block on the top, but hit has two named choices, and the group needs to quickly discuss which one they want to do. Once they’ve done so, they choose two team members (preferably who didn’t participate last time - that’s where groups of 4 or 5 really help), they let me know which one they’d like to do, and I give them the envelope that contains that task.

The two named choices (left slip) and what one of those two choices looks like (right slip)

The process is then repeated, with only those two students being able to talk while trying to complete that task, and their other team members helping in whatever way they can. Finally, that work is checked, students get their next Route Info card, and they send another group member out to find the final slip for the leg: the Pit Stop. The first team to return with that slip, wins that leg of the race. I then keep track of how long the other teams take to return with the next place finisher having a time in relation to the first finisher (for example, +01:03 would be the time for the team that finished one minute and three seconds behind the team finishing first). The time is then kept in relationship to those numbers.

In future weeks, taking a cue from the television show, teams will also be able to find or be rewarded with Detour slips that can be used against a team that is trailing them. Such a slip will require the targeted team to return to the classroom and complete an additional task (probably requiring no more time that 3-4 minutes, due to the class period time restraints mentioned earlier) before returning to claim the team's next Road Block option slip.

Of course, all of this is an experiment in progress, but with my first week behind me, I'm confident that the next four weeks - the remaining four legs of the race - will provide exciting opportunities for students to be challenged and to use collaboration to overcome those challenges, as well.

Please feel free to provide any comments or recommendations below, or to contact me on Twitter (@ATeachersTeach). I'd love to have a chance to add you to my growing PLN! Keep up all the great work you're doing in your own classroom!

-Charlie
(A Teacher's Teacher)