Exceptional Learners Breakout

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

On October 31 at the F. Donald Myers Education Center the Exceptional Learners Division engaged in a building wide break out game. About 75 players, in groups, worked collaboratively to solve a series of challenging puzzles in order to open locked boxes.

Modeled after escape rooms often seen in malls, breakout activities bring critical thinking, collaboration, creativity and communication together and have become popular teaching tools. Games are set in a variety of fictional locations, such as prison cells, dungeons and space stations, and usually the various puzzles and riddles themselves follow the theme of the room.

In the Exceptional Learners activity, core academic departments as well as social workers, speech pathologists and specials teachers developed activities that apply English, science and math knowledge for players to maneuver their way through and obtain codes to break into a box. For example, the science breakout room had a Galapagos Islands theme. Social studies had a medieval theme. The boxes had tricks and treats in them if the teams were able to break the code and open the lock. 

Tyler Smith, Salem CSD, said “it was fun to learn something in a different way.”