Random Request

45 minutes
Random Request

LEARNING OUTCOME

This activity will enable you to:

  • Reflect on own role in a team
  • Recognise time pressure when working on an assignment
  • Understand the importance of planning
  • Understand the importance of leadership

Students will learn how to work as a team and collaborate under pressure. They must make smart decisions, work efficiently and manage their tasks as effectively as possible. This activity will energize the students and is a perfect game to start your class with as an icebreaker, especially in the beginning of the season. Random Request will underline the entrepreneurial skills, such as leadership, management and collaboration and make them aware of the importance of these skills.

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RESOURCES & PREPARATION NEEDED

Required equipment for participants (per team):

  • Handout template (1 for each team)
  • Pen

Required equipment for the teacher:

  • Prize for the winning team
  • Stamp or stickers (to prove you’ve seen/checked the assignment/challenge)
  • Stopwatch
  • Beamer 

Downloadable material and templates for printing/presentation:

  • Random Request Answer Sheet (for the teacher)
  • Random Request Assignment Sheet (for participants)
  • Random Request PowerPoint Template

Preparation:

First, prepare a questionnaire including several games, challenges, questions and puzzles. Find an example of a template and questions attached. Consider the following points of attention:

  • Provide more challenges and questions than the students can finish in 20 minutes, so students must choose carefully which assignments to complete
  • Assign high points to ‘easy’ challenges and low points to the assignments which takes a lot of time or are difficult to execute and vary in the amount of points
  • To make it more fun for students, adapt the questions and challenges to your local environment and use fun facts about your city
  • It might be handy to have another person by your side. In this way you can split the tasks and have someone around who can support you counting points and watch the group

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ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION

This fun, energetic activity is called Random Request and will develop and improve students’ management and cooperation skills. The activity is very practical, and students must work in small teams. The activity will ask them to solve and answer a wide range of questions, puzzles, problems and challenges. The students need to collaborate and create solutions and answers as quickly as possible. 

Divide the group into teams of 3 students and hand out the assignment template which you have prepared in advance to each team. The winning team is the one who collects the greatest number of points. 

RULES for participants/students: 

  • The winning team is the one that has earned the most points. No cheating, no discussions about the way points are assigned. 
  • Carefully read the instructions and assignments on the paper. 
  • Write your answers on the answer sheet you have received from the teacher. This sheet is also used to collect stamps or stickers for assignments you had to perform in front of your teacher(s)
  • It’s forbidden to use mobile devices 

RULES for teachers:

  • Hand out the assignment sheet for students to each team. Make sure you place the paper upside down. The teams aren’t allowed to read the challenges yet before the time set. 
  • Set timer at 20 minutes and show the timer on your screen, so the teams can always see how much time is left
  • Before you start, don’t yet tell the students about the aim of this challenge. At the end of the challenge you can reflect together with the students, why this activity was done and which skills they have used to perform

After the clock ran out, ask everyone to sit down. While you reflect the challenge with the students, the other person checks the answer sheets and counts points. You can reflect the game using the tips mentioned below and discuss the answers of the questions asked during the game. Announce the winner, hand over the prize and wrap up the challenge by summarizing lessons learned. 

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RECOMMENDATIONS FOR ASSESSMENT

Your students must think about the number of skills they have used to play the game. You can ask the following questions: 

  • How did you make decisions?
  • What was your group dynamic? Did someone turn out to be a natural leader? 
  • How did you determine the value of each task? 
  • How do you score the level of teamwork?
  • What would you do better next time? 
  • Which skills came forward while playing this game? (E.g.: Time Management, Creativity, Teamwork, Delegation, Planning, Problem-Solving, Decision-Making, Stress Management, Strategic Thinking, etc.)

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EXTRA MATERIAL

Timer to show students how much time is left

10 time management tips for students