In my quest to wisely use those last few minutes of class time and bring joy to my little Room H-9 learning community, I’m adding a new element to my classroom routine this year – Quarter Trios.
Here’s the plan: At the end of the second week of school, I’m going to announce that students will work in assigned teams of three, or “Trios,” over the quarter marking period to occasionally complete a variety of fun, rigorous, and random tasks. At the end of the first quarter (roughly early November), members of the Trio team with the most points will have their lowest assignment score (up to 20 pts.) dropped from the grade book. For the second quarter, I’ll scramble the teams and a new round of merriment will begin. And we’ll repeat the process for the third and fourth quarters.
Occasional incentive “bonus” prizes will also be offered in the midst of each quarter’s competition to keep energy high through the mid-quarter doldrums. In addition to earning points that go into the Trio’s quarter-long tally, some challenges will include bonus prizes, such as:
• Homework passes
• Positive phone calls home to parents/guardians
• Donuts for the Trio team members to enjoy during S.S.R. on Friday
• Mystery Box prizes (Candy? Dollar store treasures? Who knows?)
• Win the right to choose your next quarter’s team members
If this plan is the hit that I hope it becomes, I may take a cue from reality T.V. programming and allow teams to mess with each other in the third and fourth quarters. For example, additional bonus prizes later in the year may include:
• Win the right to change another team’s name
• Win the right to remove three points from the tally board. (Might take three from one team or one from three different teams – their choice.)
• Win the right to scramble the members of three other teams.
Standing offers for Trio team points will include:
1. I witness a random act of kindness/awesomeness. I plan to make a big deal about such moments early in the year as I award points to deserving students with the hope that this will encourage positive classroom behavior.
2. Snap a real-life grammar crime and email me the shot along with an explanation of how to fix the error. The photo needs to include at least one team member’s face. Only errors on professionally printed signage will be awarded points. Sorry, no handwritten grammar crimes accepted.
3. Donate a yearbook or dance photo (an actual photo, not digital) of you from this year to add to our classroom display wall.
Challenges: (I’ll toss one or two of these at them each week)
1. On announcement day, does anyone have a purple pen? Earn a point! (Purple = Our school’s color)
2. On announcement day, can anyone name every person in the room? Earn a point!
3. Brain Teasers (I’m going to fit these in at the end of class on Tuesdays and/or Thursdays, depending on the weekly lesson plans.)
4. Content-based review games (Jeopardy, Flyswatter, Quote Races, etc.)
5. “Just Give the Word” game
6. Word ADDiction game
7. New film connected to our literature studies being released? Submit a movie ticket stub and one-page review to earn a point.
8. Local book signing by an important author? (We live in the S.F. Bay Area, so this happens a lot – lucky, I know.) Submit a photo with the author or bring a signed copy of the book for me to see.
9. Any team with at least three (five? ten?) donations during the school’s November canned food drive earns a point.
10. All three team members wear purple on our first school spirit day? Earn a point!
11. All three team members dress in Hawaiian garb on Aloha Day? Earn a point!
12. All three team members dress in a costume on Halloween? Earn a point!
13. Selfie including all three team members and our principal (or Mrs. C., our campus supervisor) (or Mr. B., our hallway’s custodian)
14. Selfie including all three team members taken at the Homecoming Dance.
15. Perform in the freshman class Homecoming Skit? One point per Trio member, so up to three possible points here, folks.
16. I’ve hidden a talisman in the library. Follow the clues I post on the class website. The first team to bring me the object tomorrow before 10:15 a.m. (the end of our brunch break) wins a point. All three team members must be present when submitting the hidden item.
17. I’ve posted a passage from a book on my website with one word or phrase missing. Figure out the author, the book, and the missing word/phrase. Submit that information to me via the Google Form link on our class website by the deadline.
18. I’ve written two stanzas of a poem. Finish the poem and submit your stanza/stanzas via the Google Form on our class website by the deadline.
19. I’ve posted a random trivia question about an author on the class website. Submit answer via Google Form by the deadline.
20. I’ve posted a random question from a TED Talk I want students to watch. Submit answer via Google Form by the deadline.
21. Post a line from Shakespeare on your social media account and send me the link via Google Form.
22. Spot one of our Words on Wednesday vocab. words in a book, highlight or mark it with a sticky note, and post a photo of that passage on your social media account. Send me the link via Google Form.
23. Create a piece of Blackout Poetry based on our current novel. Physically submit your poetry/art piece to me in class by the deadline date.
24. In the last three minutes of class, build a tower using only your Trio members’ six shoes. Tallest, free-standing structure when the timer goes off wins the point!
25. Post “Randazzo is the best teacher ever!” on your social media account and send me the link via Google Form.
The Trio team’s first mission?
Decide your Trio team’s name. Fill out a simple Google Form (link will be posted on the class website) announcing your new team’s name, which is what I’ll use when updating the weekly standings. Also, exchange phone numbers/email and set up a team Instagram or Photobucket account. For the next quarter (nine weeks), you’re a team!
Details to help manage this chaos:
• By requiring students to create a team Instagram or Photobucket account, they’ll be able to post the photo evidence from different challenges and then just send me the URL instead of attaching the full photo to an email. To make things much easier on my end (just say no to email clog, people), students will fill out a simple Google Form and one of the questions will include a space for them to post the url/link of the photo they posted. All of this info will dump into an easy-to-navigate spreadsheet, including clickable links to each of their photos. Huzzah! Those Google Form addresses will be posted when needed on my class calendar, but teachers without websites who want to use this Game Plan could just write their Google Form url on their whiteboards and have students submit their entries to that address.
• To keep things efficient, Trio members will be placed somewhat near each other on the seating chart. No more, “When are we getting new seats?” The answer will always be at the end of the quarter, when we change seats and Trio teams.
• I’ll update the weekly tally every Friday before I leave campus. Any discrepancies (I do make mistakes, y’all) need to be reported to me within one week.
So that’s my plan for new school year. Whaddya think? This shouldn’t be too hard to manage, right? Any ideas to add to my list of challenges? I need to have 36 weeks (or so) of challenges at the ready and I’m only at 25 right now. Happily, two other teachers in my department have decided to take a similar “gamification” approach to their classes, so we can compare notes and may even have some down-the-hall competitions. Oh, it’s gonna get noisy…
Teach on, everyone!
I’m in! Besides, we’re purple too!
How will you keep up with the points for each class?
Great question, Kim. I think I’m going to keep a weekly tally on the whiteboard behind my teacher desk where the kids can see it and then just transfer those points to the ongoing tally on the front page of my class website each week. I also could just set up a spreadsheet on my laptop and update at the end of each day, but I’m hoping this won’t turn into too much of a bookkeeping hassle.
During this past school year, I have been thinking about implementing a “gamification” approach to my classroom since my daughter’s history teacher does this, but with a social studies theme. They were extremely competitive, and the winning team earned bonus points on their tests. My daughter often exclaimed how much fun–yet very competitive and cutthroat–this was!
Will you please share more information on #16, your talisman idea, especially examples of the clues. Will you also please explain the Quote Races in #4?
For additional challenges, you can maybe add small activities, projects, etc. for Earth Day, Veterans Day, Administrative Assistants Day, etc. Students can do something nice for the secretaries or lunch ladies or another student in the building. They could also perform a “Pay It Forward” activity that students can somehow document. Maybe, for more points, they can come help you reshelve books or organize papers for you during their study hall time.
I wish you the best of luck with this new approach and would love to hear any updates as your year progresses. It will comforting to know that I am not alone in this new endeavor!
Ahh Laura this is a genius idea!!! I am definitely going to try this with my 7th graders. I have a smaller crew this year and they seem like a good test class for this.
I’m loving this, too. Can’t wait to work out the kinks and see what they can do.
Great, Michelle! For the talisman idea, I haven’t completely thought that one through, but I figured I would have a distinctive item (my Poe figurine, perhaps?) and then, with the help of my campus’ fun-loving librarian, come up with a groovy hiding spot somewhere in the library. Maybe behind a Poe anthology or tucked into the base of a potted plant? I’m thinking this challenge will be sort of a geocaching-meets-treasure hunt based on the clues I give on the class website, all in the quiet stacks of the library.
For the Quote Race, that’s a review game I use where I pick 30-to-40 distinctive quotes from a piece of literature and then teams need to identify the speaker of the line. They are allowed (encouraged!) to use their text to look up their answers. It’s a “race” because the team with the highest number of correct answers in the allotted time will win, but in the case of a tie it’s the team that turned the paper into me first that wins the race.
I also like your “pay it forward” idea and will chat with our leadership teacher about ways my freshmen might be helpful to the campus. I’m sure he can come up with a long list of more “challenges.”
Thank you. This is a fabulous idea. Thank you for all you share!
I’m in with my 8th graders! I want to have FUN this year!
THIS IS AWESOME! We had a Hunger Game aka Phoenix Games last year on our campus with a series of sports towards the end of the year. We are hoping to incorporate some sort of Brain (Masterminds type) aspect to it this year and you have filled my head with ideas! Maybe add a community service type challenge to it?
Ah yeah, Bianca! Let’s take this school-wide! I actually sent printouts of some of my Brain Teaser slides to my tween while she was at Girl Scout camp this summer and those little quizzers were (apparently) the talk of the camp. The girls took turns passing out the questions and loved being the one to hold the answer slides/pictures. Slowly, those slips of paper made their way around the entire camp, she said. Maybe something like this would work as a lunch competition? Hmm… And I REALLY like the public service angle, too. Thinking…thinking…
This is such a great idea! Another challenge you could have them complete is have students choose an educational YouTube video (TedTalk, crash course, etc.) to watch and leave a meaningful comment (in a grammatical correct paragraph of course). This would also work great for online articles or blogs. They could take a screen shot to prove they completed the activity
Love it! Great idea, kmiller7792, and the screenshot requirement is a perfect time-saver. Plus, there’s even a bit of writing for an authentic audience here. Genius!
Great idea! I’m returning to the classroom after maternity leave (and to the high school arena after an extended break). Love your idea.
Welcome back, Nicole! Looks like it’s time to get your “game” face on. 🙂
Create a game sheet that includes the name of each guest along with 2-3 statements that can be true or false next to each name. Give each person a game sheet about an hour into the evening.
Thanks, Newton, for this addition. It sounds like a dinner party game idea that we might be able to turn into a two-truths-and-a-lie game for our classes. I’m glad you wanted to contribute.
I’m going to implement this in my AP English class this quarter. Are there any suggestions/warnings you have now that you have been doing it for a little while?
Great, Lisa! Nine weeks into this, I think my biggest piece of advice is to be ready to commit. Even if we get busy with the million curricular things I need to include each week, my students will make it a point – an urgent point! – to remind me to include a Quarter Trio task in our week. They look forward to the break from the routine and, since we’re nearing the end of the first round, they’re very competitive as many of them are hoping to squeeze out a last-minute victory. It’s been great fun, but it’s not something I can set aside for a few weeks before I get back around to it. It’s become surprisingly important to them.
Thanks Laura! Has it been difficult to track?
Hey, Lisa. Not at all. I just entered all of the teams’ names onto the front page of my class website and I update the tally each week. I do this while the kids are reading SSR books on Fridays and it takes five minutes, max.
Laura,
What do you do if you have to create a pair and not a trio?
Hey MB,
Only one of my classes has ended up with perfect trios, with all kids fitting neatly into threes. For the other classes, I have situations needing either one pair or two pairs to make the numbers work. For those classes, I just told the “duos” that they’ll sometimes be at an advantage and sometimes be at a disadvantage, depending on the series of games/tasks. I also told them that, if they win the whole quarter game play, I’ll give “extra sparkles and glitter” to their bonus point prize and no one’s had a problem with that. If the main prize was, say, 10 bonus points in the gradebook, then I’d probably give a duo that won 12 bonus points instead. You know, that sort of thing.
Interestingly, we just wrapped up the first quarter trio competition last week and the prize wasn’t nearly as important to them as just playing the games/completing the challenges. Yes, the prize is nice, but everyone’s having so much fun with the different tasks that the prize, at least from what I’m seeing on my end, doesn’t seem to be their main motivation anymore. They’re really bonding and having a good time trying to solve demanding content – I’m calling this a win!
Have a great Thursday!
🙂 Laura
Thanks so much, Laura. I have this all ready to roll out tomorrow for our Quarter 2. You continue to amaze me!
Have fun with it, MB!
Ok—-i sooo love reading your posts and ideas and would enjoy coming to observe your class someday. Bravo to you and your great ideas you share with all of us! QUESTION: How do you give them the weekly challenge? Email it? Write on the board. Just tell them? What day do you give to them and did I miss—they must complete task by end of the week to earn the points? THANKS AGAIN!! M
Hey Melissa,
I love that you love the blog! Yea! Early in the year, I started off by giving the challenges each Monday and they were due Thursday or Friday, depending on what we had happening that week. I always just announce them at the beginning of class. As the year rolled along, though, it became less scheduled; whenever I had a pocket of time in my calendar or a sudden burst of inspiration, I just threw down the gauntlet and issued a challenge. By the fourth quarter, most of the “challenges” were weekly sessions of Brain Teasers because we were all just white-knuckling it to the end of the year. Still, it was a ton of fun. One random challenge late in the year, though, was to build the tallest tower they could in five minutes using only the contents of their backpacks. I ended up giving some points for height and some points for style because some of them were so creative in what they were quickly able to pull together. Creative teamwork for them. Goofy fun for me. That’s a win, for sure! 🙂
Hi Laura,
I love your ideas!!! I would like to try this with my classes this year. I just have a couple of questions. The trio teams just compete against their class period correct? Or do they compete against all your classes throughout the day. Also, all the teams who make a correct submission get points, or just the first team to submit an entry?
Thanks, Gloria! Yes, I had the trios compete only within the same class period, though you could easily add a Grand Champion layer of competition that covers all of your sections. And, yes, almost all of the games/competitions were run so that every team could earn the point/s on every round. I harp on my kids a lot about “fast doesn’t equal smart,” so I try to steer away from competitions where the quickest to answer wins the point. If I have to, I usually only use that as a tie-breaker strategy.
Hope this helps with your planning!
🙂 Laura
Thanks Laura! That helps me understand the game better. One more question. You have a google form for each period correct? I am new to google form, so I am doing a crash course. 🙂
Hey Gloria,
I actually only used Google forms once in a while for teams to submit answers or urls of their online postings/photos for specific challenges. To keep track of the weekly standings, I just typed up the team names and updated the points manually on my main class website page each Friday while the kids were reading the SSR books. Easy peasy! 🙂
Thank you!
Anytime, Gloria. 🙂
Do you have a standing Google Form for the Quarter Trios? Do they just continuously fill it out or do you change it every week?
Hi Susan,
I actually needed to use a Google Form only about once per nine weeks, so I just made a fresh one each time, depending on what I needed for that specific Trio Challenge. All of the other games/contests were easy to track just within the class period by scratching down points on a Post-It Note and then entering those points later on our class website. Easy peasy!
🙂 Laura
Okay, I’m preparing myself mentally to start our own Trio games. Do you have any advice about forming the groups? I’ve spent so much time creating and recreating groups. I vacillate between drawing names out of a hat to alphabetical order. Nothing seems quite right. Does anyone here have any advice? Not sure why I’m letting this hold me up…
Thanks! I love all your stuff!
Oh, I know, Dana, group-clumping is tough. For the first time through, since it’s the beginning of the school year and I don’t really know the strengths and quirks of everyone, I just did it alphabetically in groups of three running down my attendance roster. Then, for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th qtr. groups, I did it by scrambling my seating chart and then making edits when I saw a group that just wouldn’t work at all. For the most part, though, I let the computer randomizer do its job and tried not to fret too much. It was mostly just for game-play, after all, and it all worked out fine. Hope this helps!
Great, that’s what I was thinking I would do. This helps so much! Thanks!
Anytime, Dana. Happy to help!
Hello! Thank you so much for these ideas and all the additional clarification. I’m in a new school district with kids I’ve never met before, so this is exactly what I needed. I can’t wait to see how it goes.
Have fun, Suzie! I’m sure your new kids will love the game approach. 🙂
Hi Laura. Thanks so much for your inspiration. Do you have a form or handout that explains the Trios Game? There’s so much to take in here that I’m stuck trying to put this game down on paper to explain. I’d like to hand out something at the start so everyone understands the concept.
Hey John,
Thanks for finding my blog! Unfortunately, I don’t have a handout or anything like that to share this time. I kept the process pretty casual, telling my students at the beginning that we’re going to have a quarter-long competition where they’ll be assigned to a group of three students who’ll compete each week in a series of challenges. At the end of the quarter, the team that’d won the most points would be awarded 20 (yes, count them twenty!) bonus points in the grade book. Yup, that got their attention. Then, each week I hosted a game or challenge or activity and kept track of the earned points on our class website. In this case, the less formal the procedure, perhaps the better? Because then you’ll have the flexibility to try out different things with the Trio teams.
So, short answer, is sorry, no handout. Hope you find a way to bring a version of this to your classes, though. Quarter Trios ended up being a favorite in my classroom last year. 🙂
Hi Laura, it’s me again! I’ve finally created my groups and we’re so excited. I cannot figure out the Google Form / add to Google Classroom thing. I know it’s because we just got Google classroom and no one here uses it and we’ve had no training. I keep searching help but I just am having trouble visualizing and figuring out how the form/classroom/student connection works. I know you’re not the right person to ask this but I was wondering if you’d mind sharing your form just to get me started. Thanks!
Hey Dana, I’m a visual learner, so I totally get why seeing one would make this a lot easier for you. Unfortunately, my Qtr. Trio forms have been disabled so I can’t share them. They were really simple, though. Just a fill-in-blank question style “quiz” (that was really just information gathering) and then I’d post the access url for students to click on my class website. If you’ve never used Google Forms before, try not to let yourself feel intimidated; they’re really much easier to build than you think they are. There are a lot of YouTube tutorials out there that can help you. I like this one: https://youtu.be/uqNHFdZTdvc
Hope this helps!
🙂 Laura
Hi Laura, I’m currently student teaching while working on my master’s and certification, and I’m a fairly new reader (though I’ve been devouring your posts). My mentor teacher from last semester recommended your blog, and I love it!
This post in particular inspires me so much for when I have my own classroom. I am hugely into role-playing games (I’ve been playing Dungeons & Dragons for 4 years), and my action-research project (which is taking the place of a thesis for my degree program) is actually on using tabletop role-playing games in the literature classroom. My husband and I talk all the time about gamification in the classroom, and I’m very interested in the topic. Your Quarter Trios sound like exactly the sort of thing that would suit my style!
This is definitely going into my future teacher ideas notebook!
Welcome to the party, Victoria! So glad you found the blog and that I’m helping to supply some seeds of inspiration. Definitely keep checking back in as your first year unfolds! 🙂
Hi Laura! Did you ever do a post on how this turned out for you/do you continue to do trios? What did you learn your first year doing them that you’d like to pass on? I’m trying to get a head start on next year, and classroom culture was an issue this year!
Thank you!
Hey Brittany,
Great question! Yes, indeed, I still use Quarter Trios in my classes. Sorry, I don’t think I ever circled back for a reflection post, but that’d definitely be a good one to write. Basically, I love the trios and they’ve gone a long way toward helping me build community in the classroom and absorb those occasional random 5-to-10 minutes that show up at the end of some periods. I keep a running tally of points for the teams on our class website and the kids get pretty competitive, especially toward the end of each nine-week grading period. I throw a few extra credit point on the grades of the winning team each quarter and then re-shuffle the kids into fresh trios for the fresh quarter, careful to sort them into high-medium-low performers as I try to balance the teams and separate the chuckleheads. That’s when I update my seating chart, too. Works like a charm! 🙂
I love this! I am definitely going to do try this this year. As you know, however, sometimes one period has a few extra minutes, while the others do not. Does this become a problem? Do you try to make sure that each period has equal challenges or does it not matter?