Bringing games into the classroom is one of the best ways to get kids excited and engaged in the lessons. It is also a good way to assess how much they know, and get them to start thinking about how much they have to study before their upcoming tests. Jeopardy is a classic study tool that a lot of teachers use, and it has always been one of my favorite things to do, in and out of the classroom. I was always and incredibly competitive kid, and teachers having us play jeopardy actually taught me how to be a good sport and accept defeat graciously. There are a lot of kids out there just like me who hate losing and love the thrill of competition. This can be an advantage and a disadvantage of incorporating fun games into the classroom. Sore losers can ruin games like this in a classroom by causing a scene or being overall ungrateful and negative just because they lost. Also, sometimes the heat of competition can get into the students' heads and they can say mean things to other students. However, with the right group of students, and a good explanation about how if they do or say anything negative they won't be able to play the fun game again, this teaching technique is an awesome way to lighten up the classroom and the smiles on students' faces!
The topics that the teacher used in her jeopardy for the students are perfect for an essentialist classroom. They allowed for easy memorization of the essential facts to know when learning about geography, and when she covered things the students didn't have to know, she made sure they were facts that would be covered in the next unit. Essentialism can be dangerous, however. It doesn't allow students to go past what is required and focuses on facts instead of expanding the intellect and becoming a critical thinker. This is why this philosophy is perfect for younger grades when students don't have a sense of critical thinking yet.
In order to make this a constructivist lesson instead of an essentialist one, the teacher could still use the same questions, as long as she made them focus less on facts, and made the students think more. Instead of asking what continent a country is in, or how to get to a specific location, the teacher could ask the students questions about the kind of method of travel one might use to get to and from specific places, or the kind of climate or environment an area might have based on its location.
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