We breakout again

As I continue my reflections on last year's new activities and learning, I return to BreakoutEDU.  I blogged about my first BreakoutEDU previously.


It was a positive experience for the students, teacher and myself.  Since then I have had the opportunity to work with other classes using BreakoutEDU and I am thrilled to report that it's value exceeded my expectations and inspired me to reshape how I frame next year's work.

I used the same activity with three classes and each experience was new.  Activities that stumped one group were easily solved by the next.  I saw many different interpretations of the same clues.  I loved how each experience was unique.






In my last BreakoutEDU activity of the year I challenged a class with an activity that included a red herring - there were four locks, four groups, and five clues (but they didn't know which one was the red herring).  This added a whole new level to the activity.



Students reported

  • Before I had the blacklight I didn't know what to do.
  • We didn't know if our clue was the red herring.
  • My teammate tried to explain it to me and kept me on task.

My takeaways

Students were engaged and working together, no two experiences were the same, and motivation was very high.  According to students, they learned to
  • Work together
  • Cooperate
  • Stay calm
  • Work together in bigger groups
I was thrilled by the cooperative learning that I saw - students using each others' strengths to work together.  "Together" is becoming my new focus this year - learning together, playing together, growing together.  We spent last year focused on community, bringing us all together in common projects and ideas (Global Read Aloud, Leadership, Reading Without Walls, Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, creating our own rules and expectations) but this year I want to break it down.  What does learning together look like?  Sound like?  Why should we do this?  The collaborative work we did last year took us to exciting places and I am looking forward to framing this year around the idea of learning together.

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