At the end of our Fractions and Decimal Equivalence unit, we played a new math review game inspired by the March Madness tournament.  I created this game so that all teams had an opportunity to work at their own pace and review the content.  The rounds were fast, and there were at least 2 teachers in the room to make sure everyone was on task.  I had my 3 highest students that knew the content solidly to grade the work from the teams, so that the teachers could focus on monitoring the student teams and peer coaching.  These high students were also responsible for adding points to the score board each time a team correctly answered problems.

We did not have any issues of student engagement during this game, as all teams really felt they had a chance to win the game.  As papers came in, they were quickly graded, and the team points were constantly going up.  All of the teams had mixed ability levels so that there was equity.  In addition, each player had to write, so this necessitated the peer coaching.  While points were tallied up, players had a chance to make shots in the room on the mini basketball net.

The final part of the game was our elimination rounds.  These rounds were quicker than the qualifying rounds.  In the end, only one team won.  In both sessions that we played this game UCONN won, and 2 or 3 weeks later, it was such a joy to see that the men and women’s teams at UCONN won the real March Madness!

Finally, a few weeks after we played this math review game, we organized a March Madness basketball tournament the Friday before our high stakes state testing started to let the students relax and get rid of stress and anxiety.  There was no content whatsoever in this game – just teams of 3 and their b-ball moves!

Below are some of the slides from our March Madness Math Review game.

One of the ways I love to review math content and encourage my higher students to coach/tutor the other students is to create math review games , where I form teams of mixed abilities.  One of the first games we played as a grade level this year was the B-Ball Challenge.  The original intention was to incorporate the basketball net, but time escaped us.  Still students had the ability to review multiplication and division concepts in preparation for the first benchmark test of the school year.  I chose the basketball theme since I know so many of my students love the game – as do I!  The teachers were the refs for our game, and we each wore our black and white stripes.  In addition, I brought out my voice amplifier for the real surround sound effect, and the kids were besides themselves!

Here’s how we played the game.  The highest 5 students for the grade level were given the role of coach and given a tie to wear.  All of the others students were assigned a player number for their respective teams.  Coaches could only coach students to the correct answer, but could not actually answer any questions or a foul would be called.  Coaches would also send up players for each “play.”  These players would have a set time limit to solve or answer the question on their boards.  Correct responses earned a point.  Incorrect responses could be “rebounded” if someone from their team had correctly solved the problem on their board on their “team’s bench”.  In addition, if a player did not know how to solve the problem on their board and they were on the “court,” they could ask their coach to call a “time out.”  Then the coach would be able to coach the player to help them get to the correct answer.  Coaches had up to 4 player strips for each player, 3 time-outs, and 2 rebounds, so they had to use their strips strategically.  Since all players were writing on their boards and coaches were always coaching, we had maximum participation during each play.  Teams got a point for correct responses.