Division is often the last of the basic arithmetic operations that students learn. Of course, when students first starting to doing divisions, they will begin with very simple problems such as dividing 4 by 2, dividing 6 by 3, or dividing 8 by 4. The next stage is to learn how to divide multi-digit numbers by a single digit one, and only after mastering this can students advance to long division (dividing one multi-digit number by another). Good and patient teaching is of course essential for students to progress, but by itself it is not enough: students also need plenty of practice at performing divisions.
It would probably be fair to say that in days gone by, some math teachers were not too concerned about finding fun and interesting classroom activities for their students – as long as students practised their sums, the teacher would be satisfied. Teaching methods have fortunately moved on since those days. Today’s teachers know that students who are engaged with their class tend to learn better, and hence interesting classroom activities and educational games are becoming increasingly popular. One such educational game that has become increasingly popular in recent years, is bingo.
It turns out that bingo is ideally suited for use in math class: it’s adaptable to a wide variety of classroom situations and styles of play, it’s incredibly easy for students to play (but still enjoyable), and importantly given the financial constraints that teachers often work under, it doesn’t require expensive materials or resources. The mechanics of the game in educational versions of bingo are basically the same as in normal bingo, but there is one key difference: instead of using bingo cards containing numbers, items relating to the topic of the lesson are used instead. So, obviously in a math class, math problems such as long divisions would be used. Students are then required to write in the answers to these questions, rather than simply mark items off their cards.
So what if you’re a teacher, and you’d like to try bingo out with your students? Well obviously you’ll need some suitable printed bingo cards – but where do you get them? Actually it’s very easy – you can print them yourself using your computer: download some bingo card creator software, and it’s a snap to print as many bingo cards as you want, on any subject at all.
By: Sunil Tanna
When teaching geography, it’s not at all unusual to want your students to learn lists of items (such as countries, states of the United States, cities, capitals, rivers, or mountains), and perhaps also some associated details of each item in such lists. Of course, rote learning can be very boring for students, and tends to be easily forgotten – so what is needed is a fun but educational way for students to learn the information while remaining motivated. It is for this reason that many geography teachers are always on the lookout for new classroom games and activities to perform with their students.
One such activity that is worth considering (especially since it is flexible enough to be adapted to many different classroom situations) is bingo. The basic idea is quite simple – each student is given a bingo card containing a different combination of the list of items that need to be learned, the teacher acts as the caller, and then you play bingo – however there are many possible variations on the basic idea:
- You could, for example, instead of calling out the items on the cards directly, give the students clues which they have to match up to the items on their cards. For example, instead of calling “Paris”, you might say “The capital of France”.
- You can also use the game as a tool to encourage participation and discussion in the class. During the game, you could ask students to explain each item that you call out before you move on to the next item.
- Another idea is to play normally, but with the added requirement that when a student claims “Bingo!”, he only actually wins if he can describe each item that he ticked off his card. If students are aware of this requirement in advance, and really want to win the game, this can be a great extra incentive to study harder.
Of course, all this sounds like a great idea, but it’s only a workable idea if you can actually get suitable printed supplies to play the game. In the past, this would have required sending off for expensive specialist materials, but today there are much easier solution: print everything from your computer. You can get ready-made free printables for geography bingo off the Internet, and there is even affordable software is available that makes it simple to print customized bingo cards (containing whatever items you want).
By: Sunil Tanna
