Skip to main content

Diving into BreakoutEDU: Test #2

The original plan, after my initial Genius Hour class test, was to create a Breakout Box session for the second-grade class. However, there were several factors that led to this not happening.

After I scraped that plan, one of my Genius Hour students got the idea to create a whole school game. From there, the idea evolved into an End-of-Year Breakout. With the help of two students, we worked together to create a game that incorporated several teachers in our building. The students would have to solve eight different clues, in eight different teacher's rooms, in order to unlock the box.

Here are some of the materials we created for the game:

  • Kick-off video which got emailed out to all students to build interest (make sure your volume is turned down!). 
  • Accountability sheet Before they could approach the 'big' box, the team needed to solve (or at least attempt) all of the clues.
  • Example clues Each teacher came up with the clues for their room. For the most part, those clues were related to content areas. In my room, for example, students had to find a number hidden on pages from a book, they had to complete a crossword puzzle, and read a cryptic letter. Each of these clues resulted in a number that helped unlock the box. 
The morning of, students met in my classroom, I showed the kick-off video for those who may not have seen it, and let them know some basic rules. I felt like it was important to communicate the expectation to respect gamesmanship (let teams figure it out on their own, no altering clues or sabotages, solve don't guess, etc.). With a few minor exceptions, they exceeded my expectations for behavior during the game. I let them pick teams, and then sent them all to different teachers' classrooms to start in. Then, the fun of solving the clues began.

One of the students, who worked on the game with me, walked around and took pictures. She also reported back to me on where kids were stuck or ran into problems we didn't think of.  That was great because then we could quickly adapt to fix the kinks in the system. She said it was fun to be able to watch people try to figure out the clues. Once students unlocked the box, they were given a ticket to bring to me for their prize (a candy bar and some bubbles). 

There are a few things I would do differently next time. For one, I'd make sure that I communicated with the other teachers more clearly about what I was doing and why. I also needed to keep track of which kids were participating and have a protocol for when kids dropped out of participating. 

On that note, there were a few students who gave up, some within the first few minutes, and some when they were almost there. When I did my first test run, I also had a student who opted out once it was discovered that there would be some thinking and math skills involved. I wonder how to keep those kids engaged, but part of the beauty of the activity was that students could opt in. But what if I wanted to use it as a classroom activity? How can I make all students feel confident enough that they can solve the puzzles?

Another conundrum...the reward. I want to explore what other teachers put inside the Breakout box? It feels a little cheap to always put some kind of reward in there, especially a candy reward. I want to research other ways to 'reward' students at the end.  

Hints were another issue. In my room, I had to do a lot of prompting because there were groups waiting outside. So to hurry it along, I gave more hints than I planned. So next time, I would make separate materials for each team. Because I didn't know how many students would be participating ahead of time, it was difficult to prepare in some aspects. Each teacher had to 'reset' their clues and could only allow one group in their room at a time. If each team got their own set of clues in each room, it would have been more fluid.

Overall, it was a great activity to engage students in thinking and collaborating on the last day of school. Some kids recognized that they'd been "tricked into learning" on the last day. I'm excited to investigate how I can incorporate it into my English classes and collaborate with elementary classes next year. I'm grateful I was able to receive a grant to try out this engaging teaching tool. 

Here are some pictures from the activity:












Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Perception vs. Reality

Before I became a "real" teacher, my perception of teaching English was that I would be blowing kids' minds with classic literature and handing out grammar worksheets.  Needless to say, that hasn't happened...yet. Instead, I was surprised to find that I loved teaching about writing. In particular, I found a love of teaching argumentation and persuasion. The seventh graders are gearing up for argumentative writing. We begin by talking about the concepts of perception and reality and how those two things influence our views of the world and all its issues. I have them make a poster that's based off a popular meme to help ground those concepts. It hardly seems like work, and it's one of the few assignments we do where I get to hear things like, "Can I finish this at home?" or "Can I do another one?" The task is to make a perception and reality poster. I start by showing them an example for a teacher, like this one . This makes for a great
Post a Comment
Read more

First Week is in the Books!

In 7th grade English, we did some activities to help get students get acquainted with their new lives in junior high. On the first day, I challenged the students to work together.  We did this activity.  It was great to observe how each student approached the challenge and helped their team out.  My favorite part of class this week was talking about the Genius Hour project. I didn't have a much time to talk about it as I would have liked, but we were able to brainstorm a few ideas to think about over the weekend. Genius Hour brainstorming "Seventh Grade" activity Most of the students I have in Public Speaking had not previously had a class with me, so I think we got to know each other a little better this week.  We did a speaking and listening activity where one student had to describe a picture while the other student listened and tried to draw it. Students also worked in small groups to brainstorm all the different ways we communicate and wrote definitions of
1 comment
Read more

Tongue Twisters, Growth Mindset, and Self-Portraits

To celebrate the beginning of fall (or to mourn the end of summer), here is a lovely picture of a sunflower in my yard. Here’s what we were up to this week! The seventh graders continued their exploration on narratives this week.   We practiced summary writing and writing about theme.   We also talked about how setting can influence the events of a story.   We used close reading strategies using the Collections Close Reader .   To put all this practice together, my students have some interesting short stories of their own in the works.   I can’t wait to read them! I’m really kicking myself for not getting any pictures of the demonstration speeches we did in second hour this week.   I’ll leave it up to you to picture my students teaching the class how to make cheesecake, wash a dog, tie a bowtie, ride motorcycles, and make lava lamps.   It was a diverse set of topics to say the least. Friday, we relaxed a bit from the stress of speech delivering and had a Tongue Twister Battle.
Post a Comment
Read more