Quick Draw!

Learning Objective: time management

Activity Category: Energizer

Time Available: 10 minutes

Space: large classroom, fits 45 students

Explanatory Notes: an energizer activity right after a short break. It is for approx. 45 students already divided up into six groups.

Activity Instructions:

1. Provide your students each with the attached "Quick Draw! page 1" face down. [Download the Quick Draw! pages as a pdf file here]

2. On your signal, all students turn over their pages and attempt to circle the numbers is numerical order, i.e., 1,2,3,4,5…. They will have 30 seconds to do so, and they must do so in silence. Any questions? Ready, set, go!

3. At 30 seconds, tell the students to stop but keep their pages face up. Ask the students to add up and tally their combined scores within their small groups. Poll each small group as to how many numbers total each group was able to circle within the given time frame. Now ask them to study their pages, and discuss within their teams how they might improve their scores. After a minute or so, ask the teams to share their strategies with the larger group. The key item that they need to realize here (or that you should point out, if they fail to voice it) is that there is a pattern to the layout of the numbers. ¹What might that be? So how might you improve your performance in these kinds of tasks?

4. Provide your students with the attached "Quick Draw! Page Two" also face down. Instructions are the same as in the first round. Any questions? Ready, set, go!

5. After 30 seconds, have students stop, tally and total their scores in small groups, and compare their first and second attempts. What you should see is that, even though the layout of the numbers on "Page Two" was in a different pattern, students performance should have improved because they invested the time, even when the clock was ticking, to look for patterns and to come up with a plan².

6. If the second round didn’t work as you expected, i.e., scores did NOT improve over the first round, then don’t start the discussion here. Ask them to study their sheets silently to discover the pattern. Conduct a third round using the same "Quick Draw, page Two" sheet so that they are dealing with a known pattern, but this time ask them to mark an "X" over each number. Performance will definitely improve, and you can then make the case about investing time up front in looking for patterns and planning ahead.

^[2] For clarity sake, let me note that I am referring to each student coming up with his own individual and internal plan, not group strategizing within the 30 second time limit.