Facilitating Jeopardy-style learning games 2.0

In a previous post, I shared the basics of facilitating a Jeopardy-like game. However, after a discussion with Learningware’s Dan Yaman, I wanted to offer a handful more tips to maximize the success of your learning reinforcement game. The #1 tip for facilitating Jeopardy-style learning games: MAKE IT FUN!

We humans remember best when we link learning to a positive emotional state–that is, when we make it fun! The following tips should help increase the fun, reduce the stress, and optimize learning.

GAME SET-UP

Team Set-Up

A strong team experience is core to creating an exciting and memorable learning experience. Here’s how to make it happen:

3 teams is optimal when playing Jeopardy-style games. This is true for a couple of reasons. First, teams finding themselves at the bottom of 5 is less defeating than being at the bottom of three. Also, more people feel like they’re “in the game.”
5 should be the maximum number of teams in any one game.
When identifying team names, you have a couple of options. You might have the teams themselves come up with a team name. However, if you’re short on time and don’t want teams to get hung up on this, you might use ChatGPT to generate some funny thematic names from which your teams can choose.
Use the team set-up as an opportunity to build energy and get players cheering. See the facilitation tips (below) for more on this.

Formulation of great questions

When designing questions, determine which format will best serve your learning needs:

Multiple Choice

Multiple-choice questions are best used to test recognition. While often easier to answer, they allow everyone to participate. With multiple-choice questions, be careful to include only one correct answer.

You may be tempted to include “All of the above” as one of your options. A better choice is to ask players to “identify the one answer that is NOT true.” That way, players will be forced to think about each of the answers in your list, rather than noticing that at least two are correct.

Open-ended

Open-ended questions require recall rather than recognition, making them more difficult to answer. These questions are recommended for team play. Be sure not to make questions too easy! It’s most fun when teams are challenged and must work to think of the correct answer.

Question Category Names

No need to get tricky here. Be sure the category names represent the content of the questions so players can focus on the content, not the cute names.

Ring-in and Question Timers

Because Jeopardy-style games reward fast readers and fast thinkers, you’ll be well-served to use an answer timer to limit contestants’ ability to ring in before a question is read. By doing this, you’ll level the playing field a bit, especially if you have non-native English speakers and/or different levels of players.

With tools like Gameshow Pro software or Who’s First Buzzers, you can manually prevent players from ringing in until you’ve finished reading the question.

After players ring in, limit the allowed time for them to begin answering the question. 5 seconds should suffice. This way, they can’t ring in before coming up with their answer.

Vet your questions

Before you hit the “big stage,” test your questions to see if they make sense and are appropriately difficult to answer.

FACILITATION

Create an emotional state

We start with this, again, because making the experience fun is critical to learning and retention. Furthermore, the energy you establish at the start will carry through the whole experience. To ramp up team energy:

Get participants cheering for their team. As you introduce each team, ask them to “make some noise” for their team.
See which team can cheer the loudest
Use playful sound effects for buzzers, etc.

Maximize participation in big classes

If you have large teams, select 3 people to represent each team. You can change who those representatives are, but you’ll need a few selected people to hit the buzzer and say the answers.
Assign everyone in the audience to be in one of the teams, so they feel they have some “skin” in the game.

Use games throughout training, not just at the start

Game shows are wonderful for reinforcement and testing knowledge, but they can also be a playful way to introduce new content or test existing knowledge before a new segment is taught. In such situations, the facilitator can control more aspects of the game. Instead of the players selecting the question category and point value, for instance, the facilitator can do it. This way, instructors can introduce new information in a sequence that makes sense. Remember, it’s perfectly okay for the facilitator to adapt the rules to suit their needs.

Managing the “What ifs…”

If players are tending to choose questions for 500 points and you’d rather start with 100 point questions to build a content story, have players pick the CATEGORY, but not the point value.
If one team is answering everything…
- Consider make-up of teams from the start and mix experienced and newbies on a single team
- You can offer “extra credit” to another team, if they can answer a follow-up question correctly.
If you’re running short on time, 2 minutes before the end of the game, jump to your “Final Question”

Make it Fun with Game Shows!

Game shows are a dynamic way to add energy and effectiveness to your teaching strategy. Hopefully, these tips will help you make it a tad easier! Following are some additional resources to “up your game”!