By Dr Lalit Kishore
Pedagogical crossword puzzles of ‘fit-in-words’ type quickly build the vocabulary of the content taught in the classroom for a lesson. Not only, such puzzles build up the working memory of the keywords of the lesson but also lead to strategic thinking to solve the puzzles quickly, it was demonstrated by students of grade 7 at Plenum School in Himachal Pradesh.
Initially, students were given opportunity to pencil and eraser to complete the puzzle by choosing different stating words and time the completion of the puzzle using a stop clock of physics lab. Self-review was allowed to report the best strategy.
Not only, children learned the use of stop clock but also used used their mind to work out the best method for completing the pedagogical puzzle that links learning of the vocabulary mindfully.
The inset picture shows the worked out puzzle which was linked to training mind for strategic thinking deemed to be one of the higher order thinking skills (HOTs).
I have found that for micro-learning based material teachers can create pedagogical criss-cross puzzles easily to enhance cognitive levels of middle school students. Further, my experience shows that these puzzles are more effective the word-search puzzles which are more attuned to lower order thinking skills of identification and sorting out.
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