First of all, I would like to thank Lynn
of TiePlay
Educational Resources, LLC, for giving me this
opportunity as a guest blogger.
About Tim Chun
I am from Bayside, New York but I currently reside in Houston,
Texas. I have been teaching for about 18 years and have taught students in
grades 7-12 and currently teach biology & aquatics science. My most recent
journey on Teachers pay Teachers began about a year
ago. I am now starting my blog this year. I will be sharing about how to
implement strategies in the classroom on my blogs. One of the things that I
love to incorporate into my classroom is the Escape Room.
Student Engagement
Student engagement is one of the most challenging obstacles in
the classroom. The teacher will not be able to teach their lesson because they
are disciplining the student and then students in the classroom will get
frustrated because of all the disruptions. Does this sound familiar?
Escape Room Challenges
One of the ways I solved this issue was to implement an Escape Room in the classroom. All I did was walk around the room and facilitate. There was engagement from all of my students because they were cooperating, communicating, paying attention to details, and having great teamwork. There was a 30-minute time limit for this activity. Here are some helpful tips when you implement the Escape Room activity in your classroom.
1. Before you begin this lesson, make sure that you place students into groups of less than 3. Students need to get along in order to have a successful escape room lesson. Make certain that students are able to work with each other prior to implementing this lesson and confirm with them as well. This will assure you that there will be fewer issues on the day you are planning this Escape Room activity.
2. Make sure that your students have prior knowledge of the subject that you are using for the Escape Room. For example, I used the Virus Escape Room in my classroom but I didn’t plan on using this lesson until the end of my unit and used it more as a formative assessment. If the students have not built up their knowledge of the topic, their frustration level will be higher than normal. Students will begin to shut down. In order to minimize this, it is best that you use this towards the end of your unit plan.
3. Let your students know that you are planning an escape room activity so that they are looking forward to that day. In 2019, I implemented 2 Escape Room activities. When I told my students that I was planning to do this activity, my students looked forward to that day.
4. Challenge your students. There is only a 30% success rate in the actual Escape Room.
5. As you walk around the
room, provide support to students who are struggling with the clues.
At the end of this activity, all of my students were able to
remain focus and think outside of the box in the classroom and complete each
task. They had lasting memories of my class and these are lessons that are very
valuable that they will not forget.
Regards,
Tim Chun
