Teacher Puzzles is an engagement tool that you can use to create puzzles from link addresses. What makes these puzzles “Teacher Puzzles” is that the puzzles are solved by answering multiple-choice questions. Each correct multiple-choice answer has the location of where that piece goes.
| (a,a) | (b,a) | (c,a) |
| (a,b) | (b,b) | (c,b) |
This activity works great for formative assessments because misplaced pieces show students that their answers are not all correct. Getting a piece wrong in a puzzle is low-stakes and does not discourage students from trying again.
You can find our Teacher Puzzles tool here. At this time, the tool is NOT mobile-friendly and works best on Google Chrome. There are three main components to the tool: input options, working space, and save options.
You will see two inputs and a button in the app's header. For the “Puzzle Pieces” space, you will type the number of puzzle pieces that you want. Not all number requests will work (especially prime numbers), but the program will find the closest match to the number that you requested.
For the “Image Address” space, paste in the Image Address of an online image you are interested in. Image addresses can typically be found by right-clicking or double-clicking the image. If you do not use an Image Address, the application will not work. We recommend using medium-sized images (400-pixel to 800-pixel side lengths). If you want to use a personal image, you will have to use an image hoster like Imgur or ImgBB. Now, all you have to do is press “Make Puzzle”.
If your inputs have been entered correctly, a grid with your image will appear in the white space. The grid will have the number of pieces that you requested or the closest match to your requested pieces.
Each puzzle piece is clickable. When clicking on a puzzle piece, you will be given options for the backside of that piece (shown to the right). The top is where you would type the question, the second is an option to attach photos through links, and the last is the multiple-choice options. The green text signifies the correct answer. If you want to delete a row, press the red “X” button. If you want to add a row, press the “Add Row” button.
When your question is finalized, press the finalize button. If you would like to close the back without saving, press the close button. Finalized pieces will lose their clickability and be greyed out.
There are a couple of optional choices (Include Instructions, Two-Sided Printing) and one mandatory choice (One Piece
per Page or Four Pieces per Page) in the save bar. After selecting your choices and hitting print, a popup with your
printable puzzle appears. This should be saved as a PDF and printed from there.
Include Instructions: Adds Teacher Instructions to the Printing Document
Two-Sided Printing: Mirrors the questions, so the picture and question line up correctly
One Piece per Page: Your question will take up an entire printed page
Four Pieces per Page: Each page will have four puzzle pieces.
The following list has some best practices for implementing this activity in an efficient and reusable way:
Thank you for being willing to try this out! If you try this out, email me feedback, reflections, or pictures of your puzzle at henry@teachlonger.com.