Continuing with the “adapt a classic” suggestions:
Surely there’s some way to adapt charades to this. You give someone an example of a complicated concept, and have them try to communicate that concept in as few examples as possible. We have similar problems with the twenty questions suggestion, though: a lot of specificity depends on deep knowledge of the subject matter. If you get a concept you or the guessers have never heard of, then you’re dead in the water and that’ll be frustrating.
The skill goals appear to be mostly “articulate the knowledge you have” and “model your interlocutor’s knowledge.” If I get a card that says “a startup that tracks viewing statistics and can combine them with parameters from the site to get detailed knowledge of how different classes of customers interact with the site”, explaining that concept is going to be odd, and it may have been the communication failure between the Entrepreneur and Graham may have been that E didn’t realize that G didn’t know that they were about combining viewing statistics with user data. If the card only has one meaningful datapoint, things are too easy- the ‘knowledge’ and ‘model’ parts are done for you, and you just need to articulate- but if the card has lots of meaningful datapoints, things are too hard- now you need to figure out what the needle is in a haystack, probably in a field that’s not relevant to you.
That suggests an alternative approach- give two people two different cards, with related but distinct concepts on them. Now, they have to figure out what the other person’s concept is with as few examples as possible. Both players share whether an example fits their rule or not. If you score, consider including the number of examples the other person gives into the score, so that you have an incentive to ask questions with examples that both convey as much information about your concept as possible while also seeking to get as much information about their concept as possible.
For example, I might have the card that reads “A blue polygonal shape with less than five sides” while you might have the card that reads “a red polygonal shape with at least four sides.”
I begin by saying “a blue pentagon fits my rule.” You respond with “A blue pentagon does not fit my rule,” and then follow up with “a red square fits my rule.” I respond with “a red square does not fit my rule,” then follow with “a red hexagon does not fit my rule.” You respond with “A red hexagon does fit my rule,” then follow with “A red triangle does not fit my rule.” I respond that a red triangle does not fit my rule, and the game continues.
Once I think I have your rule, I write it down and stop providing examples. You can continue to provide as many examples as you like, until you also write down a rule. We then reveal rules, and then if scoring get points for guessing correctly, possibly with points taken away for every example provided.
This looks like it’ll be obvious with rules based on geometric concepts, and similar mathematical objects so long as everyone is familiar with them. It should be extendable to fuzzier concepts as well (adding a “maybe fits my rule” or related answers will help).
This activity seems like it would tie in well with a unit on hypothesis and experiment generation as well- it reminds me of the 2-4-6 test. Perhaps have two different scoring rules: when trying to teach specificity, give points for getting your partner to guess; when teaching how to find the right hypotheses and tests, give points for guessing correctly.
Continuing with the “adapt a classic” suggestions:
Surely there’s some way to adapt charades to this. You give someone an example of a complicated concept, and have them try to communicate that concept in as few examples as possible. We have similar problems with the twenty questions suggestion, though: a lot of specificity depends on deep knowledge of the subject matter. If you get a concept you or the guessers have never heard of, then you’re dead in the water and that’ll be frustrating.
The skill goals appear to be mostly “articulate the knowledge you have” and “model your interlocutor’s knowledge.” If I get a card that says “a startup that tracks viewing statistics and can combine them with parameters from the site to get detailed knowledge of how different classes of customers interact with the site”, explaining that concept is going to be odd, and it may have been the communication failure between the Entrepreneur and Graham may have been that E didn’t realize that G didn’t know that they were about combining viewing statistics with user data. If the card only has one meaningful datapoint, things are too easy- the ‘knowledge’ and ‘model’ parts are done for you, and you just need to articulate- but if the card has lots of meaningful datapoints, things are too hard- now you need to figure out what the needle is in a haystack, probably in a field that’s not relevant to you.
That suggests an alternative approach- give two people two different cards, with related but distinct concepts on them. Now, they have to figure out what the other person’s concept is with as few examples as possible. Both players share whether an example fits their rule or not. If you score, consider including the number of examples the other person gives into the score, so that you have an incentive to ask questions with examples that both convey as much information about your concept as possible while also seeking to get as much information about their concept as possible.
For example, I might have the card that reads “A blue polygonal shape with less than five sides” while you might have the card that reads “a red polygonal shape with at least four sides.”
I begin by saying “a blue pentagon fits my rule.” You respond with “A blue pentagon does not fit my rule,” and then follow up with “a red square fits my rule.” I respond with “a red square does not fit my rule,” then follow with “a red hexagon does not fit my rule.” You respond with “A red hexagon does fit my rule,” then follow with “A red triangle does not fit my rule.” I respond that a red triangle does not fit my rule, and the game continues.
Once I think I have your rule, I write it down and stop providing examples. You can continue to provide as many examples as you like, until you also write down a rule. We then reveal rules, and then if scoring get points for guessing correctly, possibly with points taken away for every example provided.
This looks like it’ll be obvious with rules based on geometric concepts, and similar mathematical objects so long as everyone is familiar with them. It should be extendable to fuzzier concepts as well (adding a “maybe fits my rule” or related answers will help).
This activity seems like it would tie in well with a unit on hypothesis and experiment generation as well- it reminds me of the 2-4-6 test. Perhaps have two different scoring rules: when trying to teach specificity, give points for getting your partner to guess; when teaching how to find the right hypotheses and tests, give points for guessing correctly.