Tic-tac-toe!

Manaswini Sridhar

A popular game that children and even adults love to play is tic-tac-toe or noughts and crosses, as it is also called. This is a simple activity that helps children develop the ability to focus on the task at hand; it also promotes strategic and logical thinking. And of course since everyone is born with the overwhelming urge to win, it also promotes better academic performance among students. So, just as we can use the game Bingo to teach, let’s see if we can use this relatively simple but intellectually stimulating game to encourage students to learn and demonstrate what they have learned. So who says that testing can neither be fun nor creative? We most certainly didn’t!

Teachers have adapted tic-tac-toe for every subject and for every level for many years now. Teachers have also found that as far as tic-tac-toe is concerned, she/he doesn’t even need to create a card (unlike Bingo!). The teacher just needs to announce a topic and have the students use their knowledge to win the game, or admit that the knowledge storehouse is not sufficiently stocked!

Let’s say that the mathematics teacher has completed a lesson on shapes and has also discussed at length their properties or characteristics. The teacher would of course like to test the students’ knowledge of the terms and their spellings.

A quick assessment of this knowledge would normally be based on the following questions:
Name the shapes that we have learned so far.
How many sides do these shapes have?
How would you spell these?

As we all know, only the quicker and more confident students call out the answers, unless the teacher has firmly put into place a strategy wherein her/his students are fully aware that they need to be pointed to or called by name before they can answer.

The conventional fill in the blanks worksheet or match the following also do the trick, but again, for those students who do not know or have not studied, it becomes more or less a guessing game. Most students do not feel self-conscious or embarrassed about receiving a bad grade for a test because the grade is handed over many days after the agonizing test, and the grade gets disclosed by the student only if he/she chooses to. However, if the test is in the form of a challenge like a wrestling match or a sparring match in an open arena, then students do take extra care to study in order to keep their reputation or self-esteem in tact!

This is precisely what the tic-tac-toe game does. It creates a healthy competitive environment, wherein the teacher can keep everyone in check simultaneously, even the shy and the lazy ones! And last but not least, there is no room for copying because each answer is bound to be unique. The student has to think on her/his feet.

Going back to mathematics, http://www.mathsisfun.com/shape.html is a fun and educative website that gives a brief explanation about shapes and quizzes the reader. The site is very interactive, but the teacher can test the knowledge of the students further by having them play the mathematical tic-toe-game.

Teacher pairs up students, sometimes placing them on par with each other, and occasionally making sure that the complacent student is challenged to perform better. One of the students in each pair draws the grid on a sheet of paper. Teacher announces the topic. Example: shapes.

Students get five minutes to think about what they have studied. There is no discussion.

Students use two different colours so that the teacher can clearly see the performance of each student. Student A can use blue, and student B can use green.

Student A may focus on shapes with four sides, but student B may be thinking out of the box because she/he has already scored tic-tac-toe diagonally. The student may be thinking of all the shapes dealt with because the student can put in diagonally a range of five, six and seven sides! The student only has to state the reason why she/ he has scored! If the teacher is evaluating the students on the basis of CCE, then student B is definitely going to get marks for thinking out of the box. Student A has no doubt studied the subject well, but student B has been able to comprehend, evaluate, and understand the information received. So, is tic-tac-toe all that ridiculously easy?

Let’s say the teacher has just completed a lesson on silent letters, and is anxious to test the knowledge of the students, not just in the form of spelling but also to verify if the students can recall these words at the snap of a finger.

Teacher says:
Each of you has to restrict yourself to only one silent letter to complete the game. If you are thinking of silent k, then you have to write all three words with silent k. You do not tell one another which silent letter you are focusing on. The opponent has to figure that out too! Words that are used in the grid have to be words with silent letters, even when they are written to thwart the other player’s win. If a player is able to spot that the word written by the opponent does not have a silent letter, then she/he is considered the winner by default.

Teacher declares the winner when she/he is monitoring the students during the activity. The above game can be given a twist by asking the students to identify what part of speech each word is! Geography can be frustrating for students, especially the chapter on food grains, cash crops, plantation crops and horticulture crops. Students need to remember the names of the crops, the kind of soil they grow in, the season and the places. Most students hate this chapter because to them it seems like an overload of information. So, how about getting students to tic-tac-toe this information and make it fun?

For the higher classes, here is how the teacher can conclude whether her students have memorized the facts.

Teacher says:
Having studied about the crops, the pair of you can play the game focusing on any aspect of the lesson.

Student A (blue) may put down the names of the rabi crops, while student B (red) may put down the names of the states that produce rice. Student A has to read through the names of what student B has put down and say what they relate to and vice versa.

As one can see, this requires the student to read the text thoroughly. Isn’t that what the teacher is ultimately aiming for? So, let’s take students through their round of games, and in the process ensure that they retain the knowledge that we transfer to them.

The author is a teacher educator and language trainer based in Hyderabad. She can be reached at manaswinisridhar@gmail.com.