I am still in Create-prep mode here. I asked students today to give me a thumbs up to thumbs down about how they were feeling about picking a topic. 80% were thumbs down, 20% were thumbs sideways.
I found the three “limiting a task” examples really helpful to show students the variety of things they could make and then we listened to this clip about a female game designer who talked about how she created a game about her life. I think it provided a good example of another way students could make a game personal to them.
BUT the real magic happened when I had them go on a walk-and-talk with their elbow buddy for 7 minutes. One person from the pair brought their phone and set a 7 minute timer. They had 7 minutes to bounce ideas off of their partner while going on a walk and get back to the room.
As students got back to the room every single one of them had AN idea! It was amazing! Typically I have students sitting around on day 3 of the time and still with no ideas… now all of my students have ideas on day -1 of the performance task work time!
I know not all schools would be ok with setting students lose in the building without direct supervision, but I thought I would throw it out there to folks!
Happy testing season!
KT