An 80's Game Show Concept to Build Recall Skills in Nursing Students
A twist on the classic 80’s TV show will have students laughing and learning. While the monetary reward is not the same, the learning rewards are top-notch. 💵💰💵
Becoming a nurse requires learning a new language. The first step is basic vocabulary, knowing the terms for pathophysiology, how to describe assessment findings, and mastering those pesky medication names.
This activity is a spin-off of a classic TV show. Maybe your students will not remember this, so you may have to pull up one of those nostalgic YouTube clips to show them how it works. It started in the 1970s at only $10,000, but we up the stakes here. The One Million Dollar Pyramid is a fun activity when the content covers a large amount of vocabulary.
What’s the big idea
I like to think of the classroom as exercise, you need a proper warm-up, or you want to quit immediately because it hurts! Moving into a complex classroom lesson requires time to get the brain moving.
Students come to your class from all different locations and contexts. Maybe they were grocery shopping, dropping their kids off at school, or changing the oil in their car. It can be helpful to give them an activity to bring their physical body and their mental space into your classroom and prime them to learn.
This exercise concept also applies to a classroom or clinical cool-down topic. Coming into clinical post-conference, students may be hungry, tired, or overwhelmed. Jumping into a care plan or complex case study is not always productive. Instead, you can offer an informal activity to do while eating or doing some stretches.
How to Implement
The pyramid game show has been around since the 1980s but have you used it for class in the 2020s? The idea is the same - get your partner to guess the concept without saying the word. There are typically six concepts in the pyramid to get to the top. Here’s an example:
One student is the “contestant” and must try to guess all the words on the pyramid from the clues given by their partner. As the clue-giver, students can use visual gestures and non-verbal communication but cannot say the exact words from the pyramid.
You can create a variety of pyramids, repeating the most important words as needed. This activity works well as a warm-up activity at the beginning of class. Students have listened to the video lecture and can practice recalling the content.
After students are paired, have them sit back to back. I have found, for some reason, that having them sit back to back adds a level of confidence for shy or quiet students. For a larger class, or if you run out of pyramids, students can work in groups of 3-4, with one student describing while the others guess. When a group completes their pyramid, they hand it off to a nearby group so that every group eventually sees every pyramid. I set a timer for one minute per pyramid.
If you want to create your own quickly, below is the link to the Canva template. You all know I love Canva! Just change the concepts and colors, and you are ready to go!
Variations
In-Person Option
One alternative is to have the students create the pyramids, which can be a great review of their notes as they go through and find critical concepts to use as pyramid clues. Then, just give them a blank template and let them fill in the blanks.
Depending on your class level, you may also have the students prepare descriptive clues for the concepts ahead of time. Then, instead of asking them to come up with clues on the fly, they have time to review their notes and prepare to present their pyramids. This alternative works well as a review if you are lecturing in class and are introducing concepts for the first time.
Virtual Option
This activity translates well to breakout rooms in the virtual environment. You could email students individually with their assigned pyramid, but this can be time-consuming. It may be more efficient in the online world to have students create their own.
If you have access to discussion boards, you could post the pyramids on discussion boards and direct one student from a group to access the pyramid while presenting in the breakout room.
Best for:
This activity works well for reviewing material at the knowledge level. It is essential to build a solid foundation of understanding and practice recalling basic knowledge before moving into more complex application activities.
Start Building
Complex nursing clinical learning needs a good warm-up and cool-down, just like exercise. The One Million Dollar Pyramid is an active learning activity that can be used in a nursing theory course or clinical that helps students recall vocabulary and use supporting verbal descriptions. It is easy to start using the template above and you can apply this to any concept with a unique vocabulary. It takes a short time to get this active learning activity off the ground and move you towards an active learning classroom!