Giving All Students a Chance to Shine
As an educator, there is no better feeling than seeing students discover talents they didn’t know they had. For the teachers and administrators in Deerfield, Illinois, this is a regular occurrence, thanks to the district’s use of innovative teaching tools from Breakout EDU. As students learn content by solving Breakout EDU puzzles, they get to apply problem solving, teamwork, and leadership skills in unique ways, giving them a chance to reveal hidden strengths.
A ‘Huge Hit’
When you’ve found a teaching tool that impresses students, teachers, instructional leaders and school board members in equal measure, you know you’re doing something right.
Maria Galanis, innovation curriculum specialist for the 3,000-student Deerfield Public School District, was lucky enough to have this experience. When Galanis was an instructional coach at one of the district’s middle schools, she attended a conference session and learned about Breakout EDU, which brings the concept of escape rooms into the classroom.
“My jaw dropped, and I thought: This sounds like it could be amazing for learning,” Galanis recalls. Breakout EDU offers hundreds of learning activities that are presented in the style of an escape room game, complete with a back story and a series of challenges that students must solve by working together. Successfully completing a challenge reveals information needed to complete a further challenge, until students reach the game’s conclusion.
The Breakout EDU kit includes everything needed to set up and complete the activities, including lockable boxes, five different types of resettable locks, an invisible ink pen, a UV flashlight for reading invisible ink, and hint cards for when students need help.
Teachers can choose from pre-made activities encompassing every academic subject, or they can create their own learning challenges. A subscription-based online platform includes access to all Breakout EDU games, subject-pack and free, the ability for teachers and students to create digital games using the Breakout EDU Digital Game Builder, the ability to create classrooms to easily create and assign games to their students and a game designing course to help the game design process.
Galanis, with the help of a colleague, shared Breakout EDU with the district’s instructional coaches and district administrators so that they could experience Breakout EDU first-hand. They played one of the games together, and “it was a hit,” she said. Eventually, all six schools in the district integrated Breakout EDU into learning.
At Shepard Middle School, where Galanis was an instructional coach, there were 20 Breakout EDU kits in use by the end of the school year. This number included six kits that can be checked from the library by teachers. And, due to the high demand and popularity of Breakout EDU in the classrooms, the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) purchased two additional kits for each of the grade level teams.
Each school in the district now has access to Breakout EDU's Full Platform. Many instructional coaches, curriculum specialists, librarians and teachers utilize Platform Access for searching Breakout EDU's full library of games and ability to create digital games.
With Full Platform Access, teachers can create and assign games to their classes, and students have the ability to create activities and complete the Student Game Design Course. The digital Platform provides accessibility and customization to educators who want to take advantage of Breakout EDU activities and weave them into curriculum.
Promoting Higher-Order Thinking Skills
In the Deerfield district, instructional coaches, curriculum specialists and librarians help teachers integrate the Breakout EDU activities into their lessons. These specialists assist teachers in finding an activity that matches the content they are covering in their classrooms, as well as help set up and organize the game materials and facilitate the game with students.
Teachers use Breakout EDU activities to advance student learning in many ways, Galanis says. Sometimes, they’ll have students play a Breakout EDU game to review core concepts at the end of an instructional unit. At other times, teachers will introduce a unit with a Breakout EDU game to pique students’ interest in the topic to come. Or, they might use games in the middle of a unit to re-engage students when the learning becomes a grind.
And students truly are engaged when they’re playing Breakout EDU games. “Kids get so excited about it,” Galanis says of the escape room approach to learning. “When they see a Breakout EDU box, they get so excited: ‘Is it coming in my classroom? Are we playing it today?’”
While engaging students in their learning is a huge benefit, the biggest draw for Galanis is that students must use problem-solving, observation, inference and other higher-order thinking skills as they look for clues and piece together evidence.
For instance, after her class read the book The Dot by Peter Reynolds, one teacher found a Breakout EDU activity based on the book. While this teacher was having her students play this game, her principal was observing the class. “The principal was blown away by how these kids were working with one another,” Galanis says.
When teachers, administrators, and others see the games in action, they can better grasp the value of Breakout EDU as a learning tool and want to bring those experiences to students. Galanis describes how she, another instructional coach and classroom teachers created a miniature Breakout EDU activity and presented it during a school board meeting to show board members this innovative approach to instruction.
“Someone (in fun) said that it was probably the best board meeting in the history of board meetings. A few board members came up to me afterwards and said, ‘It’s incredible that students get to learn like this. The students are so lucky to have this in the classroom.’ That was very affirming to hear.”
Opportunities for Growth and Self-Reflection
In playing Breakout EDU games, students aren’t just learning core content, or even problem solving and inference skills. They’re also learning how to work together as a team. It’s during this process that Deerfield teachers see aspects of students they might not have seen before, such as leadership abilities.
“Different strengths emerge for each student, and it’s awesome to see,” Galanis says. “It's great to see positive characteristics shine through from all students. Somebody was having a hard time opening a lock, and one student said: ‘Hey, can I help you? Let me show you how it’s done.’ As soon as he found a purpose in helping somebody else, it was his time to shine.”
Galanis advises teachers to include opportunities for students to reflect on their learning after completing a Breakout EDU activity.
“This debrief is where the magic happens,” she says. “It’s a time for students to reflect on the skills they used successfully while playing—or the skills they’ll need to use in the future. A debrief takes Breakout EDU to the next level as an instructional tool.”
Deerfield teachers and administrators have seen improvement in their students’ problem solving and collaboration skills throughout the course of the year as students become more adept at solving the challenges. “What’s impressive to see,” Galanis says, is when students recognize their own growth during the debriefs as well.”
“It’s great to see that they can verbalize how they have improved,” she concludes.