Soundtrack for this post:
http://youtu.be/ta-Z_psXODw
ARRRRGGGHHHH! Pirates are cool. Treasure hunts are cool. Allowing your learners the freedom to go hunting for knowledge is definitely cool. For the last few years I have set up various types of treasure hunt, which have had different levels of success. These include *huge* amounts of preparation work and you have to trust your class to actually do the treasure hunt as opposed to bunking off to the canteen. I like the freedom it gives my learners and it builds a really positive relationship with the teacher if you make your expectations clear. I have also found treasure hunts of any kind bring out the competitive side of my learners, so be prepared to see them really hyped up. Mind you – a little bit of enthusiastic anarchy for one lesson never hurt anyone, and it did wonders for drawing in the slightly disaffected members of the class. I am going to write about three types of treasure hunt I have tried: a traditional Harry Potter inspired one, geocaching and a QR code hunt.
Harry Potter Treasure Hunt
This one was based in a circuit of check points around the inside of the college building. Groups were given different start points so that they all progressed around the circuit, they should in theory, not bump into each other or clog parts of the college. Each check point had an activity to complete before they could follow the clue to the next check point. The clues were written on scrolls and were totally naff and rhyming. For example- ‘If it is the next check point you seek, think about where you wipe your feet.’ Well, ok, maybe not quite that naff, but you get the idea. I called it a Harry Potter hunt, but really it wasn’t – it was just scrolls, but I think that sounded better than a Rachel treasure hunt! The learners all raced off with zeal. The clues seemed to work and I was pleased as they rushed about solving the puzzles. The problem came when the next class came to do the same activity. Some ne’er-do-wells had moved the clues! Disaster. Whole class wondering around, unable to finish the task without my intervention. It’s ok to make mistakes, and I had not really planned for the clues going AWOL. In the end I had to take the students back to the classroom and fill in the piece of the task they had missed. However, the activity was still valid. They were engaged and really proactive in the pursuit of knowledge and the activities at the check points extended their learning. I learnt that I needed to have a back up plan, which is a valuable lesson if you are willing to take risks in your teaching.
Geocaching
Images from http://www.reconomy.org.uk/geocaching/
Not just the preserve of geographers! Geocaching is an outside activity that uses GPS devices or apps to find a cache, or small treasure. It is great fun and there are probably hundreds only a short distance from where you are sat right now. Have a look here to see geocaching.com I asked my students to download a GPS app, and then follow a circuit trail around the grounds of college, which I had set up with help from a geocaching enthusiast. A cache is a disguised box, and I put a learning activity in each one as well as the GPS position of the next cache. The caches themselves can be quite cunningly disguised, some are camouflaged, some have magnets on so you can really go to town hiding them on the side of pipes, in holes in the wall and in bushes. It’s fair to say my AS class were *very* excited to try this, even though it was freezing cold outside. On the whole they all followed the circuit well with only minimal cheating on the harder caches. We had some problems with phones where I didn’t consider the apps as useful as they could have been- but in teams they did all acquire the knowledge required for that lesson. I wouldn’t use this type of activity to teach a key bit in the course, but for blowing off steam after a serious topic, or after exams it was brilliant. Again, it emphasises the trust you have in your learners, and it got them running about outside, which is always nice to see in older learners. Extending your classroom to the outside can be a valuable activity if you plan effectively to ensure that they are on task, and it engages them more fully with the subject and the importance of them taking control of their own learning rather than being focused on the teacher.
QR code treasure hunts
I designed a series of lessons that utilised Solo Taxonomy as well as indulging my geekier side with student generated QR codes, where they created and then undertook treasure hunts using their mobile phones. This was designed to self/peer teach Feminist approaches to Inequality and replaced lesson plans that last year featured a 34 slide PowerPoint (the horror!).
Lesson One- Students were divided into small groups of two or three and given an area of Feminist enquiry into inequality to become expert in, for example Hakim, the Pensions gap, and so on. They had an hour and a half to research the topic and then create a Solo style station with QR codes that would enable other students to research and become experts in that area. The classroom was soon filled with learners utilising their own devices to research and then create resources for the use of other groups. By the end of the lesson all the groups had produced QR codes that linked to relevant web based or student student generated content. They had achieved the unistructural phase of learning. My students found this site good for generating the QR codes: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
Lesson Two-The students arrived with a QR scanner already downloaded onto their devices. They then worked round the room using the QR stations to complete a grid that covered the content of the specification. I was amazed at the quality of the content that the QR codes led too. Students had not only linked them to web content, but had also created podcasts, infographics, and even a twitter account (for a dead Marxist Feminist) to assist their classmates in their learning. The beep noises the phones make when they scan the codes made my classroom sound like Tesco checkout, but the students were totally engrossed working round the various stations to ensure that they completed the grid. I found that there was a surprising amount of peer support and sharing of information. All students completed the grid, which was a demanding amount of material. This was the multi-structural phase of their learning.
Lesson Three- This was the day the sun first came out and so we decided to decamp to outside. Before doing this each group was given a giant hexagon and told to summarise their initial uni-structural learning onto it. We then took the hexagons outside and spent time as a whole class moving the hexagons around to create evaluative links between the theorists. This was more complicated than it sounds and took some negotiation between the different opinions and evaluations of individual learners. This negotiation, and the evaluative skills that it required to reach a collaborative conclusion, was the relational and extended abstract phase of the learning as it promoted the learners to think beyond the information presented and utilise learning from other modules and even areas outside the formal learning of the course.
This type of treasure hunt is really successful if all your learners have access to the technology to create and undertake it. You can run into problems if they are sharing phones or devices, so you need to ensure that you plan effectively around this issue. However, the effectiveness of the treasure hunt was that the students made the QR codes themselves and were therefore invested into the importance of the quality of their output, as they knew other learners would need their information to complete the task. If you are interested to find out more about using QR codes try here:http://ictevangelist.com/how-to-make-use-of-qr-codes-with-your-ipad-teachers-students/
So- three types of treasure hunt where some were more successful that others. However, across the board students on leaving college tend to recall these lessons as ones they enjoyed. I know this is in part due to the structured chaos that letting them loose can bring. However, if you plan well then the impact on their learning can be massive as it encourages a positive mindset amongst them that the teacher doesn’t have to be the focus of the lesson and that they are trusted to take ownership of their own learning. What do you think?