Internet Research using Quiz-Quiz-Trade

Teaching children Internet research skills is very important however it can sometimes get a little bit boring just asking them to find out answers to lots of comprehension-style questions on particular topics. Whilst I'm not suggesting that this type of activity isn't valuable or doesn't work, I do believe that giving children some variety in their ICT lessons can be extrememly effective and can indeed challenge them to think about different ways of approaching ICT tasks.

One such creative approach to developing Internet research skills is to ask children to design their own quiz-quiz-trade cards to test each other with, like I have just done with our Year 4 class.

An example of a Kagan structure for co-operative learning and activity engagement, quiz-quiz-trade involves the children quizzing a partner before then 'trading' cards with them to repeat the process with a new partner:

1. The teacher tells students to "Stand Up, Hand Up, Pair Up."
2. Partner A Quizzes B.
3. Partner B answers.
4. Partner A coaches or praises.
5. Partners switch roles.
6. Partners trade cards and thank each other.
7. Repeat steps 1-6 a number of times.

Although it was originally designed as being a method for use in PSHCE lessons (e.g. to develop social skills), it can quite easily be implemented in any subject, in my opinion.

Our Year 4 children are currently learning about the Tudors and are extremely motivated by the topic - it would therefore have been a wasted opportunity, I felt, if they weren't given the chance to spend some ICT lessons researching online for additional facts about this major part of British history.

For the first lesson, I directed them to my Primary School History Encyclopedia website and gave them a short time to just explore the Tudors section on it. After about fifteen minutes, I then asked them to write their own set of questions which could be used in a whole class quiz-quiz-trade game about the Tudors - the idea being that they were given ownership of the task and were allowed to choose themselves what aspect of the Tudor period they wanted to research (and subsquequently write questions) about.

   

We discussed the various ways of doing effective research on the site, including: doing key word searches (with just 2-3 key words spelt correctly), navigating the menu and remembering to scroll down to the bottom of each page to not miss anything, and I gave them a blank template document I had created for them to enter their questions and answers into to create a set of quiz-quiz-trade cards.

Following this lesson, I next went through all the saved cards to cherry-pick out the best ones to use next time. I tried to pick out questions that covered a variety of different aspects of Tudor History (i.e. not just on Henry VIII) and printed them onto three different coloured sheets of paper to indicate their relative level of difficulty.

In the second lesson - after a recap on the outcomes of the previus lesson - I then just let the children play quiz-quiz-trade with the cards they had helped to compile.

As well as reminding them of the structure itself, I also gave them a few organisational pointers too, such as:

• walk around the room with your hand up to let others know you are searching for a partner;
• look at the colour of your partner's card to prime your brain to think how challenging it will be to answer (it would perhaps be difficult to say that the questions were providing differentiation as the children get very mixed up when playing the game);
• research for the answer on my Primary School History Encyclopedia on the nearest laptop to you (I checked that all the questions could be answered from it beforehand and going to the nearest laptop would save children time walking to 'their' laptop when a nearer one would be just as good);
• give your partner a high-5 when you have traded your cards with each other (a fun way for them to celebrate answering their question correctly and an easy way to indicate to me when a trade has taken place).

To say that the two lessons were successful would be an understatement - every child was getting involved, every child was developing their Internet research skills and I could clearly see that every child was enjoying it all too! The quiz-quiz-trade game literally had the whole class motivated and wanting to use their ICT skills to develop their understanding of Tudor history - even the usually less-confident children were wanting to take part and really seemed to benefit from being coached by their more-confident peers in how to research for the answers online.

I know that I often recommend that you try out my lessons but I can assure you that this one is a real gem to deliver!

Comments

[Niki Hall-McNair]

Thanks for a brilliant idea! I think i might try it next week, researching facts about Chinese New Year.

[Jo Badge]

Thanks Simon - I'm about to start my second PGCE teaching placement with a year 4 class, I am dying to try this out with them!!