Using
Scavenger Hunts to Get Students Moving in Virtual Learning
Scavenger Hunts
Spencer Author:
9.23.2020 by John Spencer
When
we hear the terms “virtual learning” or “remote learning,” it’s easy to imagine
students spending eight hours a day in front of a screen. However, as
educators, we know that this approach isn’t developmentally appropriate.
Children need to move around and interact with their physical world. They need
to explore new learning in a way that is hands-on and tactile. This is why we
need to craft virtual lessons that take students off-screen and get them moving
and making.
Teachers
all over the world have been incorporating movement into virtual and online
spaces through the use of scavenger hunts. I love how flexible the scavenger
hunt structure can be. You might design a simple scavenger hunt around a
child’s home or you can design a more complex and elaborate scavenger hunt
within the larger community. A scavenger hunt can help a kindergarten discover
shapes in their world or find environmental text. However, a high school senior
can use a scavenger hunt as an ethnographic study of the structures and systems
in one’s community.
The
Power of Scavenger Hunts in Distance Learning
A
scavenger hunt is pretty much what it sounds like. Teachers give students
specific clues or items that they find from their homes or around the larger
community. This works well as a video-conference activity, but it can also work
as a series of photos that students take and upload to a shared file. Students
can work in teams using the breakout room function, or they can work
independently. The following are a few scavenger hunt ideas:
Math
scavenger hunt: Students find specific items in their homes that connect to
core math concepts.
Maker
scavenger hunt: Teachers give students a list of item specifications. It might
be something soft, something elastic, something round, etc.
Science
hunt: When students are learning about natural environments, they might use
their phones to take snapshots of different environments in their neighborhood
History
hunt: Students can do a walk of their city and find elements of culture or find
identifiers of history (such as street names or plaques).
Language
Arts scavenger hunt: At a younger age, students might explore environmental
texts. They can search for sight words on something like a cereal box.
P.E.
scavenger hunt: Students might have a set of challenges where they have to hop
to certain items and then do a series of jumping jacks when they find another
item.
Music
scavenger hunt: Students can do a scavenger hunt where they have to record
certain types of music that they hear in the environment.
3
Ways to Structure Scavenger Hunts
Scavenger
hunts can be synchronous or asynchronous. Here’s a quick refresher on what
those terms mean and when to use both types of communication tools.
The Divergent Thinking Scavenger Hunt
A divergent thinking challenge is similar to a design sprint, but it’s built on the idea of creative constraint. With limited resources, students must then use items in new and unusual ways. Listen to the Podcast 14:47
Posts
