With all the problems we’re having teaching during the pandemic, one has to reinvent activities and strategies that allow students to interact and do things in the classroom without putting their health at risk. Not long ago, my students shared cards, mixed and mingled with each other and spent their time interacting. Now, we can’t play board games or change partners and so on. Classes threaten to take the form of ‘the old days’ when students had to sit still and keep to themselves. I’m fighting against this, beating my brains trying to come up with new ideas or adapt old ones to the present-day situation.

For today, I’m going to try out a team quiz activity. I’ve used cards quite often, but they were facing downwards on a desk. Here the cards will be on the whiteboard and the class will be divided into two teams with a student from each team that will have the role of ‘messenger’. The messenger has to consult his or her team’s answers and write them on the blackboard (of course, each writer will have their own chalk and their half of the blackboard). Each messenger will be the only student that will be able to move around from the blackboard to where the team is sitting (in a circular form keeping safety distance).

We’ll see how it goes, I don’t think it’s perfect, but something is better than nothing and it seems to stick to the safety protocol.

Do you dare take the challenge!!!