Update October 2019: Jumble has been renamed to puzzle, and now it’s a question type you can combine with other questions in one kahoot. Read more about puzzle and watch a tutorial to learn to use it.

Elementary teacher and Kahoot! Ambassador Tom Arntson has used Kahoot! for over two years and was one of the first proponents of the Jumble game mode! In this article, he explores how the Jumble game benefits his class – and how it can benefit yours, too!

My Overall Impression of Jumble

– In my time using Kahoot!, I’ve enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm for learning grow in all of my students, especially from those who’ve struggled in history and science. When Kahoot! came out with their new questioning game format called Jumble, I was excited to see how it might work in a classroom, what students thought about this new kind of questioning and its playability. After playing Jumble with my class, here’s my overall impression.

Student Feedback

– First, It’s very important to listen to students; here are their top thoughts on Jumble:

“I like it because the questions are more complicated.”

“It’s harder, you have to pay more attention.”

“I like moving the tiles around.”

“If you don’t know the answer it’s really hard to guess.”

A New Challenge for Students

– Second, what I noticed is students don’t have a lot of practice answering this way. Students responding to questions that require their full understanding of what the question is asking, and then being able to rearrange the answer tiles in the correct order to satisfy the question.

– It took my students a couple of tries to understand how to move the tiles around, but after a few questions they had it down! I also noticed my students enjoyed this “extra” challenge! They weren’t just having to find the one correct answer from a group.

Building, rather than Selecting

– Third, this kind of questioning & answering format gives teachers a different way to check understanding because students have to use what they have in front of them to answer the question.

– Maybe it’s putting the bones of the body in order from smallest to largest, chronological order of past U.S. Presidents, or matching a four-part question with tiles in the correct order. With Jumble, students have to build the correct answer with what was given them. We want our students to be knowledge-builders, and this is a great way to continue that emphasis.

Assessing Deeper Understanding

– Finally, although this question format requires more time and skill from the teacher to create, it can be a valuable tool to assess the deeper understanding and how the Jumble pieces are related to one another.

 A huge thank you to Tom for being such an awesome teacher and Kahoot! Ambassador! Check out his top Jumble kahoots on the Solar System and Space! You can also follow him on Twitter @MRAROOM12.