In case all the ideas on this website aren’t enough, I just found a great blog that gives you a steady stream of cool classroom ideas, mostly for elementary school, but I already see a couple I can modify to use in my community college classroom. The author is Mike Perry, and he taught high school math, but many of the games will work with any subject. http://classroomgamesandtech.blogspot.com/
For example, here’s a game called “This or that” that would work well as an ice breaker in any class at the start of the year: http://www.prometheanplanet.com/en-us/Resources/Item/92529/this-or-that-game
One of the easiest ways to incorporate games into teaching is to use Jeopardy. I have used it to liven up test reviews in courses as disparate as calculus and remedial arithmetic. Free templates for the game can be gotten by searching “PowerPoint Jeopardy Template.” You can then enter questions and answers into the template. There are also versions available that teachers have posted for various classes, with the questions and answers already written in.
To make game play more collaborative, and to ensure that everyone is working, the whole class can participate in finding the answer to each question, rather than just one student at a time, or the class can be split into teams. Student appreciate being able to go back over the game at home as further review, which can be facilitated by posting the game online, for example, in a course management system such as Blackboard.
Both installments of the Portal games have been lauded for the educational value of their physics-based puzzles, but now Valve is working to make education a more explicit goal of the games.
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