How I Use Digital Escape Rooms in the Classroom

Addys Denis — Sat, 25 Jul 2020 19:11:11 +0000

I LOVE escape rooms in general. I have done some with my friends and I find them exhilarating.

In the past few years digital escape rooms have found their way into classrooms and for good reason. Many of the teachers I have spoken with are willing to use them but just don’t know how to incorporate a digital escape room into their classroom.

Escape rooms create a level of engagement and excitement like no other activity that I have used. They pack so much content and create healthy competition among peers. After all, it’s a game played in teams where they must find clues to unlock different parts of the game. When you think about it, it’s just like a video game where kids are taken on an adventure to reach a common goal.

In this blog post I’ll discuss how I set up a classroom for a digital escape room (if you have been following me you know I don’t have my own classroom. I am a math coach who goes into other teachers’ classrooms to provide support). All of the teachers I service are always willing to lend me their classroom and students to do a digital escape room activity.

What’s needed for a digital escape room?

a few laptops or chrome books (since students are grouped in teams, you don’t need a device for each student). I’d say 4 to 5 groups is perfect.
internet access (these escape rooms are mostly housed in a google site so internet is a must).
a link to the digital escape room.

Why use a digital escape room?

they provide a level of engagement hard to accomplish with any other activity.
you can pack content from an entire unit into this one hour activity and students won’t complain because they are having fun.
provides healthy competition for students.
it allows struggling students to complete a rigorous activity and feel successful at completing a task.
teachers don’t need hours of prepping, cutting, laminating, and putting things in folders. It takes seconds to simply email students the link or show the link on a smart board.

digital escape rooms in the classroom

How to set up Digital Escape Rooms

Because of the digital nature of these math digital escape rooms, set up is a breeze. Set up pods of desks in your classroom by grouping a few desks together.

I like to have 4 to 5 students in a group. They all work using the same laptop. I also like to put some students on the carpet with a laptop or chrome book to keep groups separated.

You can play music in the background that relates to the theme of the escape room. Many teachers also display a timer. 60 minutes is typical and it lets students know they need to escape before the time is up.

digital escape rooms in the classroom

What is my role as the teacher during an activity like this?

Your role is to facilitate, coach, and guide. But not to tell them the answer!

This is important.

Escape rooms are challenging and students love this!

They get really excited when they finally discover a clue! Don’t steal that joy by helping them too much.

Because sometimes they veer way off, I like to provide my students with two clue cards.

They can simply be two index cards that they get to use when they are stuck and need a little help.

This is not to be used to get the answer but rather to provide guidance when they are way off. Since they only get two, most groups tend to use them wisely and in many instances they don’t use them at all.

Collect the cards as they use them.

These videos are from this Single Digit Digital Escape Room. This was a third grade classroom and it took teams between 60 and 90 minutes.

What’s holding you back from trying out a math digital escape room?

I have a few math escape rooms for a variety of grade levels and skills.

Math Escape Rooms

The post How I Use Digital Escape Rooms in the Classroom appeared first on Loving Math.

Creating your Own Digital Escape Rooms for the Classroom

Loving Math in Elementary School — Sat, 02 May 2020 17:41:00 +0000

An escape room is an adventure in which players solve a series of puzzles using clues, hints, and strategies to complete the objectives at hand.

Digital escape rooms, as the name suggest, are completed online, and require no printing, cutting, laminating, or setting up. All a teacher needs to do is give the link to the students and let them explore and struggle a bit to complete all the challenges.

I like to keep my digital escape rooms to about 4 challenges for a maximum time of 60-90 minutes. I have tested mine in different classrooms and find that this is a good time frame for students to work through. Believe it or not, the time goes by so quickly that it seems like only 15 minutes have passed.

Here is how I plan my escape rooms:

1) Decide on the skill or standard you want your students to review. This could be a specific math or reading skill, a chapter review, or the review for a quarterly assessment.

2) Decide how many challenges you want to include: This is important as you don’t want the students to finish too quickly or spend hours on a challenge. 60 minutes is optimal.

3) Decide on a theme or story line. Escape rooms have a story behind and includes the student as part of the story. Something like “a team of aliens have invaded earth and captured you. In order to escape you must complete each challenge.” This sets the stage and gives you a canvas for your creative process. Think about adding pictures or scenes of aliens

4) Design each challenge by using a variety of sources: I host my escape room in a google site and include a variety of outside links such as puzzles, videos, google slides, hidden pictures, google forms, google drawings, etc.

5) Decide on different digital locks: You can pick word, color, directional, or number locks. All digital embedded in a google form.

6) Embed your forms and lock box right into your site: Embed your lock box right into the site you are using and publish your site.