Turn Based Strategy X Probability

So, I went for it. I pulled my favorite style of game into my class. I actually turned my class into a turn based strategy game, and it worked...on the second try.

A little over a week ago I was partaking in the #XPLAP chat on Twitter, which if you don’t participate in something educationally on twitter and you teach, you totally need to. During the chat, the idea of using an hourglass came up, which lead some back and forth that looked something like this…

You should totally follow both of these guys by the way. Great educational minds.

The gist of the conversation was that the room is the battle field for a strategy game. As we are studying probability I thought it would be a good opportunity to give this a try. As I am currently playing a lot of Fire Emblem Heroes, Nintendo’s turn based strategy mobile game, I drew some of my inspiration from that.

I wanted to make sure we had a play area with a grid. I used rubber bases from the gym class. Color coding would have been awesome, but in order to get a 5 by 7 play area I took every rubber base that they had. Another thing I thought would add something was classes with different movements, abilities, and weapons. Though, I narrowed it down to movements and abilities as assigning weapons limits the mathematical possibilities. Giving them one weapon and they would be repeating the same formula over and over. Instead, the probability to be worked out was assigned to their place on the play area.

My grid based floor and the lettered version of it on the board.

Spectators, those not playing, would complete the math for a given player involved in the match. This would hopefully maintain engagement as I had no idea how long it would take. I even created a ‘Tactician's Log’ for them to keep up with.

During the game students were allowed to take 1, 2, or 3 steps on their turn. Then depending on the space they were standing on, they would be given a situation in order to attempt to eliminate another player. They would use dice, spinners, a set of 10 cards, or a bag with foam squares in it. Each space had it’s own circumstance, some more probable than others. Those situations were the ones the spectators would have to work out.

As I said, the first block to try it didn’t go so hot. I put too much on them and I realized it. They seemed to get it, but asking them to follow different players meant I had to make sure different groups were doing different things all while half the class waited. Too many balls in the air. Once that class left, I gave a few seconds of thought to throwing in the towel on the concept altogether, but I knew it could work. I just needed to streamline a bit.

Students had to roll two dice, spin two spinners, select two cards, or pull two squares from a bag in order to eliminate other players.

During lunch, I changed two things and it made all the difference. I had kids not playing focus on one player per turn, which increased their engagement. It allowed more students to see what I was going for in my essential question; how can we use probability to help inform decision making? I also sped up turns by having the other members of the team complete their actions while non players worked out their math. I am so glad I didn’t give up on it.

A big thank you goes out to Mr. Taylor (@TeacherRunner42 on Twitter) for being a sounding board on the lesson. I hope it is the beginning of more to come.

Take them to the dungeon!

When I first started reading the book about Gamification, it happened to coincide with me correcting one of my larger oversights as a Nintendo fan: I finally played the Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask. One thing that I set out to do was create a dungeon. Not a "Take them to the dungeon!" prison style dungeon. In video games, like the Legend of Zelda, a dungeon is a place that you go to find new objects, solve puzzles, battle ugly monsters, and ultimately build up your character.

In Quest for the Shards of Light, my students would be visiting the Jungle Temple of Kip Cel Flahn. The name is ridiculous, but we are studying the Keep Change Flip strategy of dividing fractions, so K, C, and F had to be there. My original goal was to present this as a performance task, but in mapping out the unit, I had a two day opening. It was a perfect fit and it would be so much better than a standard practice in the form of worksheets. 

The dungeon activity started with a take on the collapsing floor trope of adventure films, like Indiana Jones. They had to solve division problems with fractions. If the quotient was greater than 5 then it was safe to step there. The groups had to work together to find the safest path to cross the room. 

For the second area, I knew that I wanted to include one branching path to give the students some choice. I went very basic with a hard room or a basic room. If they choose the basic room the work would be pretty standard and more what they were used to. If they choose the hard room however, I told them it would really push them. However the reward would be greater if they took that route. This area had two parts, a review of ordering fractions, decimals, and percents followed by three division problems with mixed numbers which they would solve and then put the answers in ascending order. The harder versions required the students to convert the fractions all the way to the third of fourth place in decimal form. 

The final area was six problems that would indicate which letters to use in a word. My original thought was to jumble the letters. However, this time, I decided to be a bit nicer since it was our first try. I choose the classic line from the Lord of the Rings, "Not all who wander are lost." The letters and answers would correspond to the word wander. This would turn around to bite me a bit, but I will get into that next time.

In preparing the activity, I did two rather enjoyable things. First, I added an element of story to the activity. As students went from one challenge to the next, there was a narrative to their journey. This was fun to write and really made me feel like this was something special. The other aspect I added was pictures like the ones above.  The pictures are intended to give this, and future dungeons, a flavor of their own. 

With the activity set, I made the copies and prepared for what I hoped would be something really great...but to hear about that you will have to wait until next time.