One teacher's journey through
This summer I got the opportunity to teach an MSDE Breakout EDU class with two other amazing educators! Just in case you do not know what Breakout EDU is, it is a kit that allows teachers to create an immersive escape room gaming experience using content! It is seriously a fantastic tool that I cannot recommend enough! Anyway, my colleagues and I split the class into three parts. I took the first week and the other two took the second and third. We decided a great way to approach this class would be to not only highlight Breakout EDU, but also other skills/teaching techniques these teachers could bring into their classrooms. I decided this was a great opportunity to try and spread the word of gamification and Breakout EDU into other classrooms in my county! I decided the best way to utilize gamification was to show the importance of theme in a Breakout EDU game. Just like in gamification, the theme is what makes a Breakout EDU game come to life! I decided to pick a theme that almost anyone can relate to: Super Mario Brothers! I decided to create a whole Super Mario World with decorations and costumes; similar to the experience I try to give my middle school students! I have to give a shout out to my co-teacher Kent for being willing to help me out and dress up as Mario and facilitate the day with me! So Kent and I weren't just standing in a random trophy room dressed as Mario and Luigi, I bought blue tablecloths from the dollar store and Super Mario decals, and gold plastic plates from Amazon to create a more immersive experience. I used poster board paper from school to cover up the mystery boxes and I painted white question marks on them. Yellow Duct Tape was also a great tool in making the boxes! All and all it was pretty easy and cheap to create this thematic look, and an extra bonus is I know I can totally use this stuff with my middle school students this year! Once I completed the look, I created four stations with challenges and a Hyperdoc for my students to write their answers on. You can view the Hyperdoc I used here. Level One: Roll the dice and create a title for a Breakout EDU game for the standard and topics provided to you. Your titles must be the same number of words as what you roll with the dice! Level Two: Come up with a theme for a game with the standards provided. You need to pick at least two outside of your content area! Be creative! Level 3: Punch out a mystery box and see what items come out! Your challenge is to tie these items to your curriculum. Write a brief explanation for how you will make it work! Bonus Challenge: Earn extra XP if you write a new item on a slip of paper and answer one left by a classmate! Level Four: Use one of your ideas from a previous level and create a Pecha Kucha for your storyline and present it! You will have 10 minutes to complete this level! Once everyone finishes their levels, one person from your team will present your Pecha Kucha As my students finished their stations they were awarded gold coins worth 5 XP for their efforts. Mario and I picked the winners for each Level and awarded them bonus XP! You can view the item cards I made here. At the end of the day, students got to trade in their XP for prizes from our awesome swag table! Special thanks to Dave Burgess, Breakout EDU, Clue IQ and Peardeck for donating prizes!
Everyone really seemed to enjoy the day! My adult students got to see the importance of theme and push themselves to really think outside the box due to the challenges. Just like kids, my adult students also had a lot of fun with the gamified class! I hope this post helps you see that gamification doesn't necessarily need to be a huge year long game, or if you are doing a big year long game, it can be fun to add in a "mini-game" every once and awhile to help mix things up!
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AuthorI am a passionate teacher from Maryland! I've been teaching social studies for four years, three of which were gamified. I've fully embraced the Teach Like a PIRATE/ Explore Like a PIRATE philosophy in my classroom, and have seen amazing results as far as engagement, excitement, and learning in my classroom. ArchivesCategories |