Breakout EDU - Engaging Students Using Escape Room Techniques!

Have you ever heard of or participated in an Escape Room?  They are tons of fun!  You attend with a group of family or friends.  Your goal is to work together to solve riddles and puzzles to unlock locks.  Eventually, you discover the code to 'Break out' of the room.

Amy Byron, with the support of the Parent Association, purchased both a Breakout Room kit (physical locks) and an account for Breakout Edu Digital (for digital locks).  These Breakout Edu options allow you to construct breakout experiences using YOUR CURRICULUM CONTENT!  It is a fun and engaging way to have students access and use your content.

Watch this video to get a better sense of Breakout Edu:

How did Amy incorporate Breakout EDU in her classroom?

Think back to the first day of school.  You are a student.  What is your experience?  You move from class to class, where each teacher introduces themselves, talks about the course, class expectations, and maybe has a short activity as an icebreaker.  Amy decided to try out the Breakout EDU experience using her traditional 'first day of school' activities.  (Of course, you can also apply any content you want to this framework!)

Breakout EDU provides the following lock types.  Students answer questions to discover which text, number, direction, shape or color combinations will unlock the lock!

Listed below are the tasks that Amy wanted students to complete, along with a sample of how she incorporated Breakout Edu problem solving and critical thinking into the process.  Amy didn't specify that students needed to work in groups, but they quickly realized they needed to collaborate to solve the lock riddles!

Course Grade Breakdown - Number Lock  

Like most of us, Amy needs to provide course expectations and outline grade calculations.  Giving students access to this Course Expectations document, students  were given the following math equation:

((T*H)/P)+L

Students had to figure out from her Course Expectations document that T=Test %, H=Homework%, P=Participation%, and L=Lab%.
Students then plugged in the appropriate percentages and solved the equation.  This solved the puzzle, allowing students to enter that number into the Number Lock to unlock it!

Safety Lab Procedures - Color Lock  

As a science teacher, it is critical that students understand how to behave while conducting a lab and what to do in case of emergency.  Amy provided them copies of the Safety Lab Procedures, and gave them access to this Google Sheet:

If students answered the question correctly in the sheet, the cell turned a color.  Once all 5 questions were answered correctly, students could input the color in the cells in order to unlock the Color lock!  (Amy cleverly used the Format>Conditional Formatting tool in Google Sheets to easily have the cell color change if the answer was correct!)

Textbook Checkout - Shapes Lock  

Like many of the tech-savvy teachers here at CCHS, Amy used a Google Form to have students check out a textbook.  (What a great idea, the spreadsheet information is all filled out for you!)  After the student submitted the form, Amy created the following Google Form confirmation message (found in Forms under Settings>Presentation):  3 4 Infinity 3 4

Students used their critical thinking skills to figure out that this message was referring to the number of sides in the shape.  Students then applied their knowledge of shapes to determine which shapes should be entered.  To add additional critical thinking, shape options included two  4 sided shapes - squares and diamonds.  Students then had to do some iterative thinking to figure out which shape combination opened the lock!

Periodic Table Understanding - Directional Lock  

To give students a little practice in understanding how the Periodic table is organized, Amy asked a question where the correct answer was 'Mercury'.  Students were then asked to find the element on the Periodic table.  Navigating from Mercury on the Periodic table, she asked them to find four other elements one after the other.  The direction they navigated through the elements was the key to unlocking the Directional Lock!

Google Classroom Code

After students had unlocked all four locks, they received the code to join Amy's Google Classroom!

What did everyone think?

Amy's students really enjoyed this unique approach to 'the first day of class'.  They liked that they got to move around,  they liked working with who they wanted (the groups were very fluid), and they liked that the task order didn't matter.  They were slightly grumpy at first that they had to do so much thinking, but definitely were into the 'Escape Room' by the end!

Amy thought it was so much better than her normal first day for a few reasons.  First, she felt it forced her to really focus in on the few items in each lock activity that she really wanted students to know.  Second, she found it a much better experience for herself.  She interacted with students and got to observe them, rather than give the same lecture 4 times.  Last, and most important, she felt that students looked at the Course Expectations and Safety Rules much longer and much more closely than they would have with a more traditional delivery method.

Intrigued?

Look for a session on Breakout EDU in the upcoming Mini EdTech Camp on Tuesday, November 13th from 3:00-4:00 P.M.