When you think about breaking out of something, it doesn’t necessarily sound like an enjoyable, let alone educational, task. Typically, if you have to break out of anything, you’re likely in a sticky situation. Maybe you’re breaking out of jail or breaking out of a room that you’ve been locked in… either way, the situation is bound to be sticky. What I recently found out in ECI 201, though, is that this isn’t the case with “Breakout EDU“. (Click the link to access their official website).

Breakout EDU is a platform that provides multiple educational game experiences to teachers to ~transform~ their classrooms. Teachers can purchase online/digital games, physical games, and digital game builders, to involve students in a lesson and enhance learning.

At this point, you might be thinking, “I still don’t understand what Breakout EDU is”. So let me tell you about my experience with it.

If you’ve ever taken part in an “escape room” or something of that sort with friends, family, or colleagues, then you already have a fair idea of the goal of this educational game! Firstly, our class was broken into 4 groups, and we were each provided with one Breakout EDU kit (reference picture below to see what the kits look like). Our professor started the clock, and each group had 45 minutes to collect enough clues to unlock all of the locks on our kit and “breakout”.

We had to unlock clues by doing multiple different things; we had to watch videos, analyze posters, and do activities that all pertained to the lesson we were learning to unlock the locks attached to the kit.

At first, I thought, “how is this game going to be that effective in teaching me today’s lesson?” I mean, it seemed like a fun thing to do rather than sitting in a lecture, but I didn’t envision it being very educational.  But then I realized, while trying to unlock our box before the timer ran down, that I was more focused and intent on getting every clue from all of the educational resources than I had been with a school assignment in a long time. I was not only learning tips and tricks on how to run a classroom (our lesson), but I was also effectively communicating with my teammates, contributing ideas and listening to others, taking the lead at times and following a leader at others, and having fun all at the same time.  This was when I realized just how important “gamification” in the classroom can be.

Now; you’ve learned about Breakout EDU and finally understand what I’ve been talking about… but now… what in the world is gamification??

Gamification (noun): “the process of adding games or gamelike elements to something (such as a task) so as to encourage participation”

When we learned about gamification in class, we learned the importance of implementing games/gamelike activities in your classroom to increase student interest, involvement, excitement, creativity, and so much more.

In the following Ted Talk, Scott Hebert discusses the powers of gamification in education, and I believe that a lot of what he has to say can be evolutionary in the educational world and in the task of engaging students:

In another Ted Talk, Jane McGonigal discusses how she believes that gaming can not only enhance our classrooms, but gaming can improve peoples’ purpose on this earth in general. Click here to hear her theory; she believes that gamers have a certain sort of eagerness to accomplish tasks and creative minds to do so that those who do not game don’t have. Given so, “gamifying” normal tasks is bound to increase motivation, engagement, and creativity- students will want to complete challenging activities.

Even in class when Ms. Bethany Smith lectured us on gamification, we had a simultaneous “game”/chart to complete that awarded us points if we did/noticed certain things during her lecture. This simple gamification technique had every student who was participating paying very close attention to the things that she said and did in order to win points in our game- we were all intently engaged.

In my future classroom, I certainly plan on gamifying as much as I can. That sounds a bit intimidating, but I think that can be anything as small as awarding points to students for certain activities like raising their hands before speaking/being quiet while others talk, to something as big and involved as Breakout EDU to teach a lesson to my students in a fun, new way that will get them walking around and get their creativity pumping. Points systems create a sort of healthy competition between students to see who can earn the most points (aka do the most educational activities) and they are so easy to implement/assign for any lesson or activity being done, that I definitely see myself creating games using points.

Here is a “points game” resource, created by Alice Keeler, that you can easily edit and mold to the specific lesson that you are teaching that will help engage your students while you talk! https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iAV3hmQc6oKVFrRduW9MjR5auVBsHfy-EUZ7aOd7lL8/edit#gid=0

This article from TeachThought also expands on the theory of Gamification, and provides 12 real ways to gamify your classroom if you’re stuck!  https://teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/12-examples-of-gamification-in-the-classroom/

I know it may sound silly at first, the thought of gamifying your classroom, because for some reason we have some sort of disconnect in our minds between games and school. One is fun, and one isn’t. But that doesn’t have to be the case! In fact, if educators can make school as fun as possible, that’s when the students will want to be there and will be intrinsically motivated to do their best. That is, after all, one of the biggest struggles as an educator, and gamification may just be the key to solving it. So, give it a try! I know I will.(: