Global History Pictionary: Ancient India Edition

Global History pictionary drawing

Ninth-grade students in Andy Centeno and Kerri Elting’s co-taught Global History classes at Carmel High School got creative at the completion of a recent unit focusing on ancient India, Hinduism and Buddhism.

While reviewing major vocabulary words from their lessons, the students immersed themselves in a game of Pictionary using white boards with partners in the class. The students took turns attempting depictions of key words such as ‘reincarnation,’ ‘nirvana’ and ‘meditation’ in hopes of correct guesses by their partners. 

"A few years ago, I came across a ton of research that states that student retention of vocabulary is greatly increased when they draw pictures and use word association tricks,” said Elting. “Ever since then, we have incorporated these kinds of reviews into our self-contained classroom.” 

This was the first time that Centeno and Elting used this activity in one of their integrated co-teaching (ICT) classes – classes in which a general education teacher and a special education teacher jointly provide instruction to class of co-mingled students. 

“It worked really well with all three classes,” said Elting. “Students that haven't participated in activities much without prompting were very involved in this game!”