Three years ago I became aware of a kit being sold for classrooms that brought the ideas of escape rooms into the classroom. Instead of escaping the room, the goal is actually to get inside a box for some ultimate goal. A single kit from Breakoutedu.com costs $150 and includes the main box, a smaller box, a 6-holed hasp, an alphabet multilock, a directional multilock, a three-digit lock, a four-digit lock, a key lock, replacement wheels for the multilocks that are colors, shapes, and numbers, an invisible ink pen, a UV flashlight, a useless red lens viewer, a thumb drive, 2 hint cards, and a deck of reflection cards. Basically, a wide array of products including five physical locks. Lastly, one gets access to an array of scenarios designed around specific themes in different subjects.
I’ll start by saying I haven’t looked at any of the designed games in over a year. I found that much like using other people’s lesson plans, using another person’s Breakout leaves a lot to be desired. In fact, I decided that none of the games were suitable for my classroom. Instead I designed my own games. The first was on the Salem witch trials. I chose this subject because I had a concern that the puzzles would not do a suitable job on an important topic. If you’re going to take an entire class out of your schedule to play a game (or do a simulation for that matter), it should replace a more conventional class. To have to spend another day teaching the subject means you’ve lost time for the purposes of having fun or a break in the monotony. Although it’s a good thing for motivation and enjoyment, if they aren’t learning much, it might as well be on a topic that isn’t that important. Although I can make a case for reasons to teach Salem, I could also drive home the point in ten minutes if need be.
Later I would add Breakout activities for the lost colony of Roanoke and the John Peter Zenger trial. Again, activities that as long as students walk away with a couple of essential ideas, it’s good enough. Meanwhile, they experience an activity that requires teamwork and perseverance. And it helps that they enjoy it.
Developing the games takes forever. That’s why I only have three original ones in three years. A good game design takes several days of focus and planning. The designer has to tell a story, starting with figuring out why they would need to get into a locked box. The same problem that bedevils escape rooms also applies here: why would someone put something in a lockbox and leave clues about how to get into the box?
For my Roanoke game, I suggested that by then student teacher Nelson Kelly had uncovered the secret of the disappearance of the colony and made up some nonsense about the forces of evil trying to keep the truth hidden. He entrusted his beloved students with the secret in the lockbox… but they would have to earn it by figuring out the clues. For Salem, the players are actually falsely accused of being witches, but for someone unknown reason they have access to this lockbox which includes a confession by their accuser that they had lied. For the Zenger trial, the students are the jury who are stuck, trying to figure out the verdict. The box contains evidence which will sway their decision. Again, why would someone put locks on the box? Uh, sorry, all questions must be in writing, preferably not a cipher.
I would be remiss if I forgot to mention that there are online Breakout games that require no physical locks. I converted one created by Kellye Sluder Self in my AP Gov class, but converted it to the real locks — if you’ve got ’em, flaunt ’em. But teachers who don’t my resources can find these online games or design original ones.
Although I said I haven’t used any of the games on the Breakout platform, that’s not entirely true. I looked through different games and found a few brilliant designs that I adapted for my three games. The creativity of the designers is pretty awesome, even if sometimes I don’t care for the overall stories or designs. I’d say half of my puzzles are repurposed versions of something I found in Breakout, the other half my own inventions.
I’ve found that the ideal number of students for my puzzles is five. Many more and you’ve got too many cooks in the kitchen, and the increased likelihood that some of the puzzles will be solved without some of the members of the group interacting with them. Although the content is not of paramount importance, the longer students grapple with readings, the more likely it is that they’ll actually retain something that they read. If they never look at a document because three other members of the group solve that particular puzzle, it is obviously not ideal. When you get down to three students, it becomes really challenging for them to beat the clock — and there really is something magical about multiple brains feeding off of each other as they bandy about ideas. I often have to remind them to talk about their thought processes so they can hear other people’s ideas and maybe build off of them. It’s one of the most satisfying things to watch as one student’s off-base idea triggers a good idea from another student.
When the game is over, it is critically important for students to do some reflection. Breakout provides a very good deck of cards with a bunch of different prompts like, “What was one thing the group could have done better?” or “Pick a member of the group and explain how they contributed to your success.” Even when the students’ experience ends with frustration, they benefit from the opportunity to reflect and praise each other’s efforts. I probably do more than some other teacher’s to nudge my groups towards a successful conclusion. It’s a fine line: do too much and they get little out of it, let them flounder and they may get super frustrated and turned off to the activity. I think I strike the balance right as students regularly ask when the next one is going to be. If it was too easy or too hard, they probably wouldn’t want to repeat the experience.
I enjoy these activities and hope to keep my snail’s pace of adding one a year, but I also don’t want to overdo it. I’m sure there are some teacher advocates of Breakout who will say their activities are great for teaching content, but I haven’t seen that; instead I choose to focus on other benefits that the activity has and do encourage other teachers to look into it. (And if someone wants to help me design a game and is willing to put up with my philosophy of what works and doesn’t work, let’s get it started!)
Fenster on Education 