Classroom Games in “Leading with Empathy”
Xuan Zhao
Leadership Institute, Brown University
(Course information: http://xuanzhao-psych.weebly.com/student-feedback.html)
Xuan Zhao
Leadership Institute, Brown University
(Course information: http://xuanzhao-psych.weebly.com/student-feedback.html)
Background information:
1) All the following games can be played with a large audience (in principle, there is no upper limit). However, for games that involve group or individual presentation (such as “parts of a whole” or “three things”), the duration might vary depending on how large the audience group is.
2) All the games can be played indoor. However, note that almost all of the games require sufficient space to let students move around or form a circle. Some games require players to sit down on the floor/in the chairs.
3) No props are needed. However, in some games, students might find it helpful to take notes at the end.
4) It is always necessary to discuss the games in a group setting after the game. Ask questions such as, “What did you observe in this game?” “What makes this game fun/challenging?” “What have you learned from this game?” “What do you think this game is about?”
5) All the games are placed on specific days of the “Leading with Empathy” course for very specific reasons. These games not only energize students at the beginning of each morning/afternoon session; they also promote investigation on the class materials on that day and guide the learning process. Occasionally, games can provide students with deeper insights into themselves through peers’ eyes.
6) Games at the courtesy of Lowry Marshall (acting professor at Brown), Ting Li (co-president of the Improv Club at Stanford GSB), Dan Klein (improve instructor at Stanford Graduate School of Business), Deborah Gruenfeld (chair professor at Stanford GSB), the K-12 lab wiki at Stanford d.school, and many more wonderful people in the improv community. You can probably find each game online or in improv manuals with all sorts of variation.
Game list:
1. Tossing A Name (Day 1)
a. In a circle, one starts by tossing his/her own name (like a basketball) to another person in the circle. The recipient catches the nameball while repeating the sender’s name, and then tosses his/her own name to another person in the circle.
b. After everyone can recall at least a few names in the circle, change the rule so that the sender should first establish a firm eye contact with the receiver, shout out the receiver’s name, and then toss the ball to that receiver. The receiver should catch the nameball and say the sender’s name, and then send the nameball to a new person while shouting that receiver’s name. This back-and-forth might be a bit confusing at the beginning, but it is easy to catch and very fun to mess up.
2. Partner Interview (Day 1)
a. Two random students form a pair.
b. Each person has 2 minutes to interview the other person on questions such as: Name. Where are you from? Who are in the family? Something you are proudest of? (Better if it’s something you wouldn’t normally tell anyone!) What inspires you? What do you want to become in the future? Etc.
c. After 2 x 2 minutes, all form a big circle. Each person is going to introduce his or her partner to the group.
d. The partner introduction session should be a surprise to the students, which emphasize the importance of active listening.
3. Rapid bonding (Day 2)
a. Two random students form a pair. Create a secret handshake
b. Two random students form a new pair. Find something you both enjoy.
c. Two random students form a new pair. Describe a childhood toy and share the sound it makes.
d. Two random students form a new pair. Create a life motto together, one word at a time.
e. Form a circle and invite students to share their secret handshake, life motto, or other things.
f. Facilitator comments on things people bond over, such as: secrets, physical contact, creating together, sharing something about yourself and not being judged for it, finding commonalities, messing with each other.
4. Counting A to Z (Day 2)
a. In a circle, one student volunteers to shout out “A.” Another student shouts “B” without prior coordination. The game goes on until the group reaches “Z.”
b. Whenever more than one person in the group shouts out the same letter simultaneously, the entire group needs to restart from “A.”
c. This game emphasizes paying attention and active listening. It also forms a group spirit. So people will often be clapping and celebrating when they finally reaches “Z,” which can take up to 10 minutes.
5. Enemy Defender (Day 2)
a. Everyone walks around the room. Change directions on clap!
b. Round 1: pick a person A and a person B. Then try to form an equilateral triangle with them.
c. Round 2: Pick a new person A and B. You are the victim, person A is a predator and person B is your defender. Make sure person B is between you and person A (don’t let person A get a clear shot at you).
d. Round 3: You are the defender. Person A is a helpless victim, and person B is a predator. Make sure you get between person A and person B (involves a lot of clumping).
e. In each round, the facilitator ask people to freeze after they have started for a while and ask people to raise hands if they are doing well/not so well.
f. The moral of this game is to save someone who is dying on out there —taking care of other people!
6. I am…, and I am here (Day 4)
a. In a circle, one person at a time takes one step forward into the circle, grounds himself/herself, looks around, and says, “I am (name), and I am here.” Then step back. The person next will continue.
b. This game emphasizes stage presence and draw people’s attention to undesirable body language in public speaking.
7. Mirror Exercise (Day 4)
a. Everyone takes a partner. Partners stand facing each other, about three feet apart. One is the leader, the other, the "mirror." The leader begins to make simple gestures or movements, and the "mirror" duplicates the leader's movements exactly--just as a mirror would. The goal is to mirror the partner perfectly, so that an observer will not be able to tell who is the leader and who is the "mirror."
b. After 1 minute, swtich the leader-mirror. Switch back and forth a few times.
c. The last round is “Lead the Lead,” where there is no leader, but pairs can move their bodies simultaneously.
d. Ask students to discuss the game. Students will often talk about how important it is important to use smooth, continuous movements, to look into each other’s eyes rather than at their hands (because this facilitates more precise communication), and how important it is to not trick the partner, but instead work together and make each other look good.
e. Read more games in the “mirror exercise family”: http://www.childdrama.com/mirror.html
8. Clap, Snap, Stomp (Day 5)
a. Round 1: Pair up. Each pair counts to 3 alternating between the two of them.
b. Round 2: Replace 1 with clap.
c. Round 3: replace 2 with snap.
d. Round 4: replace 3 with stomp.
9. Yes, let’s! (Day 5)
a. Everyone randomly walks in the room. As random as possible.
b. Anyone can shout out ‘Let’s ...(a verb)...’, and everyone follows by saying “Yes, Let’s!” and perform that behavior. E.g.: let’s all swim/be monkeys/hug each other.
c. A few seconds later, another person shouts out something different, and the game continues.
d. This is a game about accepting offers (and also be imaginative).
10. Emotional Mirror (Day 6)
a. Warm students up with videos talking in gibberish (I used a conversation between twins on Youtube).
b. Players form into pairs, facing each other.
c. One starts talking in gibberish, with a specific emotion (angry, happy, in love, you name it). The other instantly copies the emotion of the first player, and speaks in his own gibberish.
d. After about 15 seconds (the facilitator can clap to indicate), the second player changes emotion, and the first one immediately follows him/her.
e. This game connects to our later discussion on read facial expressions and body language.
11. Parts of a whole (Day 7)
a. Divide people up into random groups, e.g. 5 people in a group.
b. Inside each group, discuss silently what animal shape they want to create without acting it out.
c. After group discussion, each group come to the stage and silently form themselves into an animal shape. The audience take guesses what the animal is.
d. This game ties into the discussion on “curse of knowledge” later that day, because the performers, having the knowledge about what animal they intend to perform, might think it is easier to guess their animal than it actually is for an observer.
12. Shared Memory (Day 7)
a. Divide group into dyads.
b. Each pair needs to “reminisce” about an imaginary shared memory, such as “a vacation to Mexico” or “the time we got lost in San Francisco.” One person starts by saying “Remember last time when we…” and continues on, making up some completely imaginary experience. At some point, the second person takes over, interrupting with an enthusiastic “Yeah, yeah, yeah…” or some such line, and then adding in another aspect to the “memory.” Once each person has shared some part of the memory, send the lead back and forth so the memory keeps building. In the ideal, the game gets going quickly with one player eager to jump in and add on what the other has offered. For variety’s sake, suggest that players experiment with pausing every now and then to leave some pregnant space between memories (as would often be the case with friends remembering a shared experience). Then, after soaking in the silence for a few seconds, they can listen for the next inspiration that comes and get the game moving again.
c. After the game, invite dyads to share some fun and crazy memories.
13. She Has a Story (Day 7)
a. Shows students a photograph of a random person (e.g. a homeless woman crawling in a street corner). Ask students to take 2 minutes to imagine her story, and then share within pairs.
b. Invite students to recommend good stories they hear from their partner.
c. This game teaches students how to cultivate empathy for strangers through imagination.
14. The Humming Game (Day 7 – was not used due to time constraint)
a. Have a volunteer step out of the room, and while they are outside, tell the group that they have two decisions to make: the task for the volunteer to perform and a song that everyone knows that they can hum. The task can be pretty much anything – putting a chair on a table, writing their name on the board, and recycling a piece of scrap paper. Be creative! (The only restriction, aside from obvious issues of appropriateness, is that tasks should involve some object or person in the room, as opposed to dancing or doing a handstand, since it is easier to guide a person to something.) The song should be something that everyone in the group knows, e.g. “Happy Birthday,” “Twinkle Twinkle,” or “The Alphabet Song.”
b. After the group has decided on a song and a task, invite the volunteer to stand in the center of the room and begin humming at a medium volume. As they start to walk around the room, hum louder as they get closer to the task and softer as they get farther away.
c. This game may take a while, especially during the first round, but the feeling of accomplishment when they finally complete the task is unsurpassable
15. Gift-giving (Day 8):
a. In pairs, one person starts to pretend giving gift boxes to another person. The gift-giver should use body language to indicate how big/heavy the gift is, and/or what the shape of the gifts is like, but he/she doesn’t need to have any clue what that gift is. The gift-receiver accepts the gift delightfully, opens the box, shout out the gift and thank the gift-giver with excitement. Then the gift-giver keeps giving out new gifts for about 2 minutes.
b. Switch roles and play the game for another 2 minutes.
c. Invite people to share wonderful/bizarre gifts they receive.
16. Three things (Day 9):
a. In a circle, all shout “Three things”, then take turns to ask the next person about something...e.g.: Three things that you have in your bag. Three things you do when you wake up. Three things you love the most in life. Three things you want to change in the world. Three things you want to take away from the class. The answers don’t have to be well thought-out or precise. Instead, it should be something that comes right off the top of the player’s head.
17. From My Heart to Yours (Day 10)
a. All sit in a circle. One volunteer starts by sending some words from the bottle of his/her heart to another classmate. The sender should tell the receiver anything the sender would like the receiver to know, e.g. how wonderful the receiver is, how much the sender appreciate the receiver, etc.
b. The game stops when everyone has received a heart.
18. Speed Feedback Exercise (Day 10)
Email Xuan for details.
1) All the following games can be played with a large audience (in principle, there is no upper limit). However, for games that involve group or individual presentation (such as “parts of a whole” or “three things”), the duration might vary depending on how large the audience group is.
2) All the games can be played indoor. However, note that almost all of the games require sufficient space to let students move around or form a circle. Some games require players to sit down on the floor/in the chairs.
3) No props are needed. However, in some games, students might find it helpful to take notes at the end.
4) It is always necessary to discuss the games in a group setting after the game. Ask questions such as, “What did you observe in this game?” “What makes this game fun/challenging?” “What have you learned from this game?” “What do you think this game is about?”
5) All the games are placed on specific days of the “Leading with Empathy” course for very specific reasons. These games not only energize students at the beginning of each morning/afternoon session; they also promote investigation on the class materials on that day and guide the learning process. Occasionally, games can provide students with deeper insights into themselves through peers’ eyes.
6) Games at the courtesy of Lowry Marshall (acting professor at Brown), Ting Li (co-president of the Improv Club at Stanford GSB), Dan Klein (improve instructor at Stanford Graduate School of Business), Deborah Gruenfeld (chair professor at Stanford GSB), the K-12 lab wiki at Stanford d.school, and many more wonderful people in the improv community. You can probably find each game online or in improv manuals with all sorts of variation.
Game list:
1. Tossing A Name (Day 1)
a. In a circle, one starts by tossing his/her own name (like a basketball) to another person in the circle. The recipient catches the nameball while repeating the sender’s name, and then tosses his/her own name to another person in the circle.
b. After everyone can recall at least a few names in the circle, change the rule so that the sender should first establish a firm eye contact with the receiver, shout out the receiver’s name, and then toss the ball to that receiver. The receiver should catch the nameball and say the sender’s name, and then send the nameball to a new person while shouting that receiver’s name. This back-and-forth might be a bit confusing at the beginning, but it is easy to catch and very fun to mess up.
2. Partner Interview (Day 1)
a. Two random students form a pair.
b. Each person has 2 minutes to interview the other person on questions such as: Name. Where are you from? Who are in the family? Something you are proudest of? (Better if it’s something you wouldn’t normally tell anyone!) What inspires you? What do you want to become in the future? Etc.
c. After 2 x 2 minutes, all form a big circle. Each person is going to introduce his or her partner to the group.
d. The partner introduction session should be a surprise to the students, which emphasize the importance of active listening.
3. Rapid bonding (Day 2)
a. Two random students form a pair. Create a secret handshake
b. Two random students form a new pair. Find something you both enjoy.
c. Two random students form a new pair. Describe a childhood toy and share the sound it makes.
d. Two random students form a new pair. Create a life motto together, one word at a time.
e. Form a circle and invite students to share their secret handshake, life motto, or other things.
f. Facilitator comments on things people bond over, such as: secrets, physical contact, creating together, sharing something about yourself and not being judged for it, finding commonalities, messing with each other.
4. Counting A to Z (Day 2)
a. In a circle, one student volunteers to shout out “A.” Another student shouts “B” without prior coordination. The game goes on until the group reaches “Z.”
b. Whenever more than one person in the group shouts out the same letter simultaneously, the entire group needs to restart from “A.”
c. This game emphasizes paying attention and active listening. It also forms a group spirit. So people will often be clapping and celebrating when they finally reaches “Z,” which can take up to 10 minutes.
5. Enemy Defender (Day 2)
a. Everyone walks around the room. Change directions on clap!
b. Round 1: pick a person A and a person B. Then try to form an equilateral triangle with them.
c. Round 2: Pick a new person A and B. You are the victim, person A is a predator and person B is your defender. Make sure person B is between you and person A (don’t let person A get a clear shot at you).
d. Round 3: You are the defender. Person A is a helpless victim, and person B is a predator. Make sure you get between person A and person B (involves a lot of clumping).
e. In each round, the facilitator ask people to freeze after they have started for a while and ask people to raise hands if they are doing well/not so well.
f. The moral of this game is to save someone who is dying on out there —taking care of other people!
6. I am…, and I am here (Day 4)
a. In a circle, one person at a time takes one step forward into the circle, grounds himself/herself, looks around, and says, “I am (name), and I am here.” Then step back. The person next will continue.
b. This game emphasizes stage presence and draw people’s attention to undesirable body language in public speaking.
7. Mirror Exercise (Day 4)
a. Everyone takes a partner. Partners stand facing each other, about three feet apart. One is the leader, the other, the "mirror." The leader begins to make simple gestures or movements, and the "mirror" duplicates the leader's movements exactly--just as a mirror would. The goal is to mirror the partner perfectly, so that an observer will not be able to tell who is the leader and who is the "mirror."
b. After 1 minute, swtich the leader-mirror. Switch back and forth a few times.
c. The last round is “Lead the Lead,” where there is no leader, but pairs can move their bodies simultaneously.
d. Ask students to discuss the game. Students will often talk about how important it is important to use smooth, continuous movements, to look into each other’s eyes rather than at their hands (because this facilitates more precise communication), and how important it is to not trick the partner, but instead work together and make each other look good.
e. Read more games in the “mirror exercise family”: http://www.childdrama.com/mirror.html
8. Clap, Snap, Stomp (Day 5)
a. Round 1: Pair up. Each pair counts to 3 alternating between the two of them.
b. Round 2: Replace 1 with clap.
c. Round 3: replace 2 with snap.
d. Round 4: replace 3 with stomp.
9. Yes, let’s! (Day 5)
a. Everyone randomly walks in the room. As random as possible.
b. Anyone can shout out ‘Let’s ...(a verb)...’, and everyone follows by saying “Yes, Let’s!” and perform that behavior. E.g.: let’s all swim/be monkeys/hug each other.
c. A few seconds later, another person shouts out something different, and the game continues.
d. This is a game about accepting offers (and also be imaginative).
10. Emotional Mirror (Day 6)
a. Warm students up with videos talking in gibberish (I used a conversation between twins on Youtube).
b. Players form into pairs, facing each other.
c. One starts talking in gibberish, with a specific emotion (angry, happy, in love, you name it). The other instantly copies the emotion of the first player, and speaks in his own gibberish.
d. After about 15 seconds (the facilitator can clap to indicate), the second player changes emotion, and the first one immediately follows him/her.
e. This game connects to our later discussion on read facial expressions and body language.
11. Parts of a whole (Day 7)
a. Divide people up into random groups, e.g. 5 people in a group.
b. Inside each group, discuss silently what animal shape they want to create without acting it out.
c. After group discussion, each group come to the stage and silently form themselves into an animal shape. The audience take guesses what the animal is.
d. This game ties into the discussion on “curse of knowledge” later that day, because the performers, having the knowledge about what animal they intend to perform, might think it is easier to guess their animal than it actually is for an observer.
12. Shared Memory (Day 7)
a. Divide group into dyads.
b. Each pair needs to “reminisce” about an imaginary shared memory, such as “a vacation to Mexico” or “the time we got lost in San Francisco.” One person starts by saying “Remember last time when we…” and continues on, making up some completely imaginary experience. At some point, the second person takes over, interrupting with an enthusiastic “Yeah, yeah, yeah…” or some such line, and then adding in another aspect to the “memory.” Once each person has shared some part of the memory, send the lead back and forth so the memory keeps building. In the ideal, the game gets going quickly with one player eager to jump in and add on what the other has offered. For variety’s sake, suggest that players experiment with pausing every now and then to leave some pregnant space between memories (as would often be the case with friends remembering a shared experience). Then, after soaking in the silence for a few seconds, they can listen for the next inspiration that comes and get the game moving again.
c. After the game, invite dyads to share some fun and crazy memories.
13. She Has a Story (Day 7)
a. Shows students a photograph of a random person (e.g. a homeless woman crawling in a street corner). Ask students to take 2 minutes to imagine her story, and then share within pairs.
b. Invite students to recommend good stories they hear from their partner.
c. This game teaches students how to cultivate empathy for strangers through imagination.
14. The Humming Game (Day 7 – was not used due to time constraint)
a. Have a volunteer step out of the room, and while they are outside, tell the group that they have two decisions to make: the task for the volunteer to perform and a song that everyone knows that they can hum. The task can be pretty much anything – putting a chair on a table, writing their name on the board, and recycling a piece of scrap paper. Be creative! (The only restriction, aside from obvious issues of appropriateness, is that tasks should involve some object or person in the room, as opposed to dancing or doing a handstand, since it is easier to guide a person to something.) The song should be something that everyone in the group knows, e.g. “Happy Birthday,” “Twinkle Twinkle,” or “The Alphabet Song.”
b. After the group has decided on a song and a task, invite the volunteer to stand in the center of the room and begin humming at a medium volume. As they start to walk around the room, hum louder as they get closer to the task and softer as they get farther away.
c. This game may take a while, especially during the first round, but the feeling of accomplishment when they finally complete the task is unsurpassable
15. Gift-giving (Day 8):
a. In pairs, one person starts to pretend giving gift boxes to another person. The gift-giver should use body language to indicate how big/heavy the gift is, and/or what the shape of the gifts is like, but he/she doesn’t need to have any clue what that gift is. The gift-receiver accepts the gift delightfully, opens the box, shout out the gift and thank the gift-giver with excitement. Then the gift-giver keeps giving out new gifts for about 2 minutes.
b. Switch roles and play the game for another 2 minutes.
c. Invite people to share wonderful/bizarre gifts they receive.
16. Three things (Day 9):
a. In a circle, all shout “Three things”, then take turns to ask the next person about something...e.g.: Three things that you have in your bag. Three things you do when you wake up. Three things you love the most in life. Three things you want to change in the world. Three things you want to take away from the class. The answers don’t have to be well thought-out or precise. Instead, it should be something that comes right off the top of the player’s head.
17. From My Heart to Yours (Day 10)
a. All sit in a circle. One volunteer starts by sending some words from the bottle of his/her heart to another classmate. The sender should tell the receiver anything the sender would like the receiver to know, e.g. how wonderful the receiver is, how much the sender appreciate the receiver, etc.
b. The game stops when everyone has received a heart.
18. Speed Feedback Exercise (Day 10)
Email Xuan for details.
