Vimboard

Controversial, spiritual, and engaging, Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK, Jr.) continues to influence our lives and the world. How can you capture the scope of his legacy in a day or even a few short activities? Let’s take a look at five ed tech-friendly activities that are approachable and provide insights into King’s legacy. There are templates for each that you can adapt and improve to meet your needs. No permission required! And I’ll share a roundup of other TCEA blog articles so you can explore even more activities to honor Martin Luther King, Jr.

1) Dicebreakers Activity

Need a quick way to cultivate curiosity in your students? Dicebreakers offer one possibility. This dicebreaker makes it easy to get started exploring MLK, Jr.’s roots.

Get a copy of the Google Slides template for Dicebreaker – This dicebreaker activity has been updated with fresh content not reflected in image shown above.

2) Internet Treasure Hunt

Creating internet treasure hunts is so easy now! And Google even takes the pain out of finding “in the text” answers to questions. Treasure hunts make searching a specific set of resources the focus. That’s the difference between a treasure hunt and a scavenger hunt, which can have a pretty broad scope.

Treasure hunts go beyond fact-finding scavenger hunts to focus on developing student critical thinking.

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.”
Source: Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this MLK, Jr. Internet Treasure Hunt, we’ll take a look at questions that exercise our thinking. Responding to these questions requires some background or foundational knowledge about MLK, Jr.

In Part 1, your students will use a jigsaw activity to build their background knowledge. You can read about this cooperative learning strategy in the introduction to the treasure hunt linked above.

In Part 2, students will develop their responses to questions in the treasure hunt. You will access educator curated resources arranged in Wakelet collections.

3) Digital Choice Board

“There is not one right trajectory of progress for all students,” says John Hattie. That’s why choice boards are great. They allow for multiple trajectories towards success. What’s more, they make thinking visible and student assessment easier.

“We are not makers of history. We are made by history.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Set up correctly, choice boards can offer students differentiated avenues towards success. What are some of those avenues toward success? We can include color-coding and giving students choice over learning tasks. What’s more, activities can include drawing or note-taking about their learning. These are some reasons why this activity ranks as my favorite.

Get a copy of the Google Slides choice board template

Check out this MLK, Jr. Digital Choice Board above. How would you improve it? Read more about digital choice boards.

Did You Know?
You can do a virtual tour of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s church, Ebenezer Baptist Church. Be sure to explore the link to see the virtual tour via @HistoryViewVr.

4) Word Cloud Analysis

Want students to analyze Martin Luther King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream speech? Drop it into a word cloud, but make it in the shape of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Students can both see how the words take shape and analyze their impact. They can choose to add emphasis to certain words in the text and then explain why they decided to emphasize them. Additionally, students can include this shape poem of MLK, Jr.’s bust in a podcast, short video clip, or classroom exhibit.

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Need some suggestions for word cloud creation? Consider using WordArt.com.

5) Vimboard

If you’re looking for a quick entry or exit ticket activity about Martin Luther King, Jr., you can use a tool like Vimboard. It will allow you to take a game-based approach and engage students in an activity that reveals MLK, Jr.

“We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right.”
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Explore this Vimboard that focuses on “in the text” type questions. Intended for grades K-2, you can step up the level of the questions to match your students’ age or grade.

View Amy Smith’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Vimboard

Wait, There’s More!

Wish there were more activities and resources? You will want to read some of these TCEA blog articles:

It’s never too late to learn more about a great American visionary. And certainly never too late to emulate one.

Ready to dig into game-based learning? While you’re waiting for a new TCEA Game-Based Learning course, I have a treat for you. This a tool that many educators are relying on in the midst of hybrid teaching and learning. It’s like other quiz show type programs.

Introducing Vimboard

A modern puzzle-making tool, Vimboard (@vimboard1) creates an interactive learning experience by combining puzzle making with a multiple choice question set. As students respond with correct answers, an image appears. Vimboard is free and you can use any of its pre-existing puzzles and content to get started. Here’s one example:

This example game focuses on students responding to physical/chemical change questions. As they respond, they get to see the image shown above. You will explore this in more detail in a moment. Before you do that, let’s revisit the importance of retrieval practice, also known as practice testing.

A Low-Stress Retrieval Practice Activity

Contrary to popular belief, multiple choice questions can enhance learning. Consider the research on their use:

Multiple-choice retrieval can be just as effective, or more effective, than short answer retrieval (McDermott et al., 2014).
Providing students with feedback decreases or eliminates students’ learning of misinformation (Butler & Roediger, 2008).
While they’re are quick to administer and grade, you should take some time to create multiple-choice questions and alternatives carefully for a larger retrieval benefit (Little et al., 2012).
Multiple-choice questions enhance learning for related information that wasn’t even on the quiz (Bjork et al., 2014) (source: Retrieval Practice).

Vimboard offers a simple way to quiz students on any topic. Successful answers yield access to a picture. Vimboard will also keep track of how well your students, did, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Vimboard offers an easy-to-use, simple quiz tool. This can be useful for retrieval practice or practice testing, both low-risk assessments that assist students. Some recommendations for using Vimboard for practice testing include:

Use quizzes often. This provides students with feedback on whether they are right or wrong in their grasp of concepts and vocabulary. These strategies can lead to deeper understanding, not only memorization of facts.
Keep it low stakes. Avoid grading the use of Vimboard. The goal is to spread out assessments over time, as you can see in the figure below.
Revisit old content. Don’t be afraid to make quiz questions about content you have already covered. In this way, students are able to better learn and retain content they have been introduced to before.

As you can see in the image below, which represents practice testing (a.k.a. retrieval practice), spreading out short assessments over time can yield great results for long-term retention.

Explore Vimboard Educational Puzzles

The heart of Vimboard is its interactive search for existing educational puzzles. From K-12 through a wide variety of subjects (shown below), you can find many pre-created puzzles to use.

When you view an existing puzzle, you see both the puzzle image and questions. The answer choices to each question appear below each. For example, the questions and answers for the chemical/physical change puzzle are:

You can add any educational puzzle you find to your collection. This makes it possible for you to edit the collection. Or, if you prefer, you can use the share icon to make it available to others online, such as your students or colleagues.

Once shared, students enter their names and work through the questions. A nice feature is that the questions are read aloud to students if they tap on the sound icon beneath the question. You can see a walkthrough of the process below.

Puzzle Game Creation

Want to take a stab at creating your own game? This is a three step process:

Introduction: In this step, you provide a title for the game, write a description, and select subject and grade level.
Image: In this next area, you provide a picture and decide on the number of tiles that will cover the picture. As students respond to questions correctly, they will remove the tiles that cover the image. Ten tiles means you can have ten questions. You are not required to match one for one (question:tiles). You could provide less questions and Vimboard will remove a portion of the tiles.
Quiz: This is where you enter the actual questions and responses. These are in multiple choice format.

How do you imagine you will use Vimboard to support retrieval practice in your classroom?

Feature Image Source

Screenshot by author.

Five Martin Luther King, Jr. Activities and Templates for the Classroom