Teaching Tip: Integrate gaming apps for review

This tip is based on feedback from 338 students across four Los Angeles college campuses.

Like the rest of us, students turn to their smartphones to fill the void of downtime (while waiting in line at the store, while commuting, while waiting for company to arrive at a restaurant, etc.) and we can utilize popular apps to help students seize that time for active learning.

Quiz Up is a trivia app that serves players 7 questions at a time (you can make the question bank as large as you want). Students can play against their classmates or against bots, and they move up in “rank” each time they play the review game. You can upload your quiz questions to a QuizUp game and then allow your students to play the game in order to study for the quiz/exam. Offering extra credit for higher ranks is a fun way to encourage students to review the course material in their spare time.

Kahoot is probably the more popular app among students and can work in a similar fashion. Kahoot’s “Challenge” feature allows students to play lengthier review games at their own pace within a certain date range. Kahoot also ranks the students against each other.

Utilizing these game apps allows students to study for a few minutes throughout each day, whenever they have an extra moment.

This tip is part of a series, please also check out:

· Augment your in-person classes with online learning platforms

· Let your students text you

· Flip your classroom

· Transform your exams/quizzes into review tools

· Let students stream your lessons in their spare time

· Build a meaningful task list

· Use discussion boards for major assignments

For the entire work, please see my article, “The Moral Obligation To Make Classes ‘Easy’.”