Are you ready to take your classroom or virtual learning experience to the next level? Kahoot! is thrilled to introduce an innovative game mode that promises to revolutionize the way educators engage their students. Say hello to Robot Run – an interactive and exhilarating addition to the Kahoot! platform that not only fosters learning but also enhances crucial skills such as spatial awareness, mathematical reasoning, collaboration, and fine motor skills.
Understanding Robot Run
Before delving into its benefits, let’s grasp the essence of Robot Run. This game mode, intricately designed by Kahoot!, challenges participants to navigate a virtual maze using directional cues. As players progress, they encounter math-related tasks that demand quick thinking and problem-solving abilities. But Robot Run isn’t just about individual achievement; it emphasizes group collaboration, requiring players to strategize and work together to overcome obstacles and reach safety zones.
Enhancing Spatial and Directional Communication
One of the standout features of Robot Run is the spatial strategy element. As players and learners move about the space station on screen, they’re also practicing and boosting their fine-motor skills and coordination. For younger students, small fingers in small spaces make for practice in careful coordination and precise movements! In sequence, little learners rehearse and review their directional skills, prompting “Move up!” “Move left!” “Just two spaces down!” to one-another as the on-screen avatars move to the highlighted green spaces. In the later grades and with older students, maneuvering through the space station grid and following directional cues, helps players develop a deeper understanding of spatial relationships. Robot Run improve students in their ability to navigate complex environments, too – a skill that transcends the virtual world and is invaluable in real-life scenarios. Players are thinking two steps ahead, prompting peers to move to the closest station, weaving strategy gameplay into speed and success!
Boosting Math Reasoning and Numeracy
Robot Run gamifies the learning process and progress for mathematical relationships, embedded into the gameplay experience! Separate from the curriculum selected by the educator or host, math and arithmetic are embedded into the gameplay on Robot Run. After a series of questions (drawn from the teacher-selected or -created kahoot), players move about the space station and navigate to prescribed safety zones. As the class progresses to more challenging levels of gameplay, safety zones become more ‘exclusive’. Only four players are allowed in one zone, for example, while eight players shuffle to the other. Younger students practice number-recognition reading aloud the allotted space on-screen, while older students think critically about the math groupings, explaining “We’re only allowed three players here. Everyone else go to the other zone!”.
Fostering Group Collaboration
Robot Run encourages teamwork and collaboration by requiring players to split into different safety spaces, communicate effectively, and coordinate their movements to achieve common goals. By working together towards a shared objective, players learn the importance of collaboration, communication, and mutual support – essential skills that extend far beyond the confines of the game. While content-specific learning (i.e. the curriculum embedded within the kahoot) remains responsive to each learner, progressing at their individual pace, the group-think efforts toward strategy and collaboration remain a focal point of gameplay and success!
Facilitating Review Questions and Reinforcement
Learning is not just about acquiring new knowledge but also reinforcing existing concepts. Like all Kahoot! game modes, Robot Run seamlessly integrates review questions into its gameplay, providing opportunities for players to consolidate their understanding and reinforce key concepts. By revisiting and revising previous learnings in a fun and interactive manner, Robot Run ensures that knowledge retention is not just a passive process but an engaging and memorable experience. Students will often cycle through the same material and questions multiple times throughout one game session, with little care for any monotony. In fact, “My Year 6 CodeClub loves playing Kahoot! so much that they would rather play a quiz than have time to use the school devices to work on their own.”
Better yet, facilitating Robot Run game modes shifts the classroom dynamic to be more supportive and responsive to student needs. While the teacher chooses a whole-group focus for learning (via the selected kahoot game), the classroom is flipped from thereafter. The pace of the game moves automatically and is hands-free for the teacher! In such, the teacher now has available time to work with students one-on-one to support individualized needs. While one student may need to be consoled for a frustrating sequence of questions, another student may need enrichment to think about questions more deeply. The hands-on, flipped classroom approach allows educators to move around and provide that differentiated and specific instruction students need.
Robot Run represents a paradigm shift in educational gaming, combining fun and learning in a way that is both immersive and effective. By leveraging spatial and directional communication, math reasoning, group collaboration, and fine motor skills development, Robot Run empowers educators to engage their students in meaningful learning experiences that transcend traditional boundaries. So why wait? Dive into the world of Robot Run and embark on an educational journey like never before!
Robot Run is available with Kahoot!+. Try Robot Run with one of our ready-made templates to blast off learning, progress, and achievement or upgrade today! We hope your students enjoy independent learning through play with our newest game mode! If you or your students have any feedback or fun classroom moments to share with us, please reach out to us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok!
