Post #8: BreakoutEDU

About a year and a half ago, I had the opportunity to experience my first escape room, Asylum, and it lived up to the hype with the perfect combination of logic, wit, and creepy! Fast forward just a few months and I found myself with a couple of teammates engaged in a session hosted by Sarah Stuhr and Crystal Miller featuring an engaging, inquiry-based activity...BreakoutEDU!

As we excitedly introduced Breakout into our classrooms, watching our students work together, persevere through challenging clues, and refine their communication skills was amazing to see...all while having a bunch of fun!  Breakouts quickly became the highlight of our classroom parties, and walking into a room with a Breakout box was always greeted by cheers from our students!

As we finished off our school year using Breakout as a fun critical thinking activity, I was able to share Breakout with some students over the summer, not just as a party activity, but also with some content-based clues.  Students were still required to collaborate and communicate while practicing their critical thinking skills focused on our topics for the week. They had to work accurately in order to solve the clues and efficiently in order to beat the timer.  Students had a lot of fun and I’ve never seen students more motivated to find greatest common factors and least common multiples!

This school year, we’ve made a conscious effort to do at least one Breakout a month and we’ve enjoyed the benefits of how much we get to learn about our students. Our first Breakout occurred on the second day of school and it introduced us to our students who were unafraid to take risks, and also those who preferred to observe and gather information before attempting a solution. After a handful of successful Breakouts, I loved how Sarah and Crystal mentioned that when a class does not successfully solve all five clues, it can be a wonderful learning experience on how to fail. As both a teacher and a coach, I think it is essential that we provide students an environment to take risks and fail safely.

BreakoutEDU has been a fun and exciting way for students to refine their 21st Century Learning Skills while having fun at the same time. We’re excited for all that it’s brought our classroom and we can’t wait to see what else is in store!