Breakout!
Locked Box Challenges for
Collaboration and Critical Thinking
What is Breakout?
Jump in and take on a life-sized game of exploration in company with your classmates. Part problem-solving, part mission impossible, part race against time, part team-building, all about "hard fun."
Critical thinking and collaboration are key skills for 21st century citizens. Working to promote these skills, ALERT and SPARK teachers provide ‘Breakout EDU’-based activities for students.
Breakout EDU is a game based activity similar to popular "Escape the Room" challenges offered live at amusement parks and online. Students collaborate to solve puzzles and unlock codes within 45 minutes. Finding answers to activities requires brainstorming, lateral thinking, research, communication skills, leadership (and followership), and the confidence to offer a possible solution that may be wrong, but in the end enables the team to find the solution.
10 Reasons to Play Breakout EDU Graphic by Maria Galanis & Sylvia Duckworth
Each game is centered around a locked-box mystery with players having a limited amount of time to open the box. During a game players navigate a series of puzzles or research challenges looking for clues to solve engaging problems. Games feature a blend of physical and online puzzles.
The ALERT and SPARK teams value the 21st century skills of Collaboration, Communication, Content, Critical Thinking, Creative Innovation, and Confidence. The goal is to enhance students' skills in these areas in observable ways through student actions during the activity and reflections afterwards.
In class discussions and activities we observe students understand ideas of competition and individual achievement but would benefit from improving their collaborative skills. Additionally, when faced with a critical-thinking situation or problem where the path to the solution is unclear, many high-achieving students display a "fixed" mindset over a "growth" mindset.
Growth and Fixed Mindset Graphic by Reid Wilson and Sylvia Duckworth,
based on the work of Dr. Carol Dweck
based on the work of Dr. Carol Dweck
Often in education when an exciting new philosophy or tool is introduced, we tend to want to try "everything at once." Our top objectives in our early Breakout EDU activities are to observe and give students experiences to improve Collaboration and Critical Thinking skills, with encouragement to seek multiple solutions through a growth mindset.
Structured Individual Reflection: Before Breakout EDU activities, students are offered essential questions similar to the following with the understanding that they will respond to one of them afterwards in written or recorded reflections--
Collaboration and Mindset
- What role or roles did you play in the collaborative challenge today (humorist, wonderer, listener, communicator, independent thinker)?
- Share a short story about when someone in the group was a highly effective team member.
- How did you react when a team member or another team succeeded at a task you struggled with? You are welcome to use the graphics on the page to jumpstart your thinking.
Collaboration Skills from the Habits of Mind developed by Dr. Arthur Costa and Dr. Bena Kallick
Critical Thinking and Mindset
- What was one critical thinking habit of mind (gathering data, defining questions, activating past knowledge, thinking flexibly, striving for accuracy and precision) you used today or saw exemplified in someone else?
- Share a short story about when someone in the group had a "Eureka" moment, when they made a sudden connection to previous knowledge.
- How would you describe your mindset during today's challenge? You are welcome to use the graphics on the page to jumpstart your thinking.
Critical Thinking Skills from the Habits of Mind developed by Dr. Arthur Costa and Dr. Bena Kallick
Confidence, Internal Dialogue, and "Self Talk"
- What was one "first thought" you had today that you had to follow up with a "second thought" to move forward? Did you have any "third thoughts" today?
- Share a short story about when someone in the group offered a possible solution that failed, but cleared the way for a new effort.
- How would you describe your mindset during today's challenge? You are welcome to use the graphics on the page to jumpstart your thinking.
Growth Mindset Statements by Sylvia Duckworth,
based on the work of Dr. Carol Dweck
based on the work of Dr. Carol Dweck