Using Dominoes in Teaching

Activity

Community building activities, Ongoing engagement

Using Dominoes in Teaching

Ahmed Gebaly

In this activity students team up to solve puzzle-like domino chains by matching connected concepts. This engaging hands-on activity transforms learning into a collaborative game.

Tech needed: Video conferencing, Breakout rooms, Objects, Shared online space

Synchronous

Accessibility: Visual

Duration: 5-30 mins

Student preparation: None

Educator preparation: Moderate

ACTIVITY PURPOSE

Allow students to cooperate and solve problems. Originally created as a language-learning activity to help students learn verb conjugation in Arabic, Spanish, French, Italian, English etc, this activity can be adapted to teach discipline-specific content. For example, it can be used in social sciences by putting a picture on one side and a name or a definition on the other side. It can also be used in mathematics, where the result is on the side and the mathematical problem on the other side.

USEFUL FOR

Student engagement, learning new concepts, collaboration.

PREPARATION

For in-person, prepare a series of domino-style cards as a table in Word or Excel, each card with two connected elements – one on the left, one on the right. Each card should link to the next, forming a continuous chain (e.g., the right side of one card matches the left side of the next card). These might be a concept and its definition, a term and an image, a problem and its solution, a question and its answer, a cause and its effect. Print and cut out the domino cards. View picture examples.

For online teaching, cards can be made using a collaborative whiteboard platform such as miro.com.

INSTRUCTIONS

In-person: Create and print and cut out the domino cards, shuffle, and distribute to individuals or small groups.

Online: Upload the cards to a shared space where students can drag and rearrange them collaboratively, such as miro.com.

During class, invite students into small groups or breakout rooms, students work together to arrange the cards into a logical sequence or “domino chain,” based on how the elements connect.

Return to the main room or class to compare solutions, clarify any misconceptions, and discuss how the matched items relate to the topic.

DURATION

It could take 20 minutes of preparation from the teacher and takes approximately 10 minutes to play.

ADAPTATIONS AND EXAMPLES

Invite students to create the domino cards.

This activity can also be applied in other disciplines. For example:

Languages: match verbs to their conjugated forms, words to translations, or phrases to pictures.
Social Sciences: place a historical image or figure on one side, and a name, date, or definition on the other.
Mathematics: put the result on one side and the matching problem or equation on the other.
Sciences: match terms to definitions, diagrams to labels, or steps in a process.
Literature: match quotes to characters, literary devices to examples, or texts to themes.

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

Collaborative whiteboard platform and breakout rooms, if taught in large classes online.

USEFUL RESOURCES

Using Dominos to teach Arabic Verb Conjugation – blog post by Ahmed Gebaly with picture examples.