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Goal

Through the use of Breakout Edu, I aim to provide our students (K – 5) with immersive and highly collaborative learning experiences which enhance critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, while fostering a growth mindset.

The Breakout Edu platform fosters teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and troubleshooting by presenting students with challenges that ignite their natural drive to problem solve in an engaging medium. Students must work together, thinking critically and creatively, to complete challenges.

The funding of this grant would directly benefit 458 students; 76% economically needy, 22% second language learners, and 25% special needs.  

What will be done with my students

With Breakout Edu, which includes access to more than 700 academic topics, encompassing all subject areas aligned to our curriculum, students will be encouraged to use their wits, collaboration, content knowledge, and grit to solve challenges. They will further be furnished opportunities to interact with new content, review and reinforce academic content, as well as revise their thinking.

The format revolves around a Breakout EDU box locked with a variety of different locks, including directional locks, word locks, and number locks.

After listening to a real world scenario, read by the teacher, students are divided into teams. Each team must work together to find and use clues to solve puzzles that reveal the various lock combinations before time expires (usually 45 minutes). As soon as students see the locked box, they will be immediately driven by the challenge to get it open.

As teams progress through the challenge, they must work collaboratively, use critical and deductive reasoning, and content based knowledge to solve a variety of clues and puzzles, in order to discover the keys and codes that will lead them through the progression of puzzles to unlock the box.

Each challenge includes physical and digital content-based clues, including hidden keys, secret codes and combinations, and appropriate puzzles or mystery items that help students obtain the combinations to the assorted locks to unlock their box before time runs out.

Note: Challenges are based on the age level of students, ideal group size, and content area. The format also furnishes the ability to custom make challenges.  

Benefits to my students

Beyond the “Four Cs”, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity, the Breakout experience is content driven. The challenges do not present random clues or themes (although “Just for fun” options do exist). Challenges are specifically designed to focus on identified and distinct skills and content; i.e. multiplication skills, nonfiction reading, lab equipment review, the solar system, Constitution of the United States, etc.

Another huge benefit of the Breakout experience is that students develop perseverance, grit and resilience. Teams will naturally experience failed attempts while working to decipher clues and solve puzzles before they find the right solution. However, they will be fueled when they learn from their missteps, reconsider their approach, and try again, and succeed.

Learning is not an all-or-nothing event, but rather an ongoing process that students refine as they work toward their goal.

Such an approach in the classroom cultivates a positive and productive learning environment. Where failure becomes just part of the journey to success.

Finally, Breakout is not just another ordinary lesson; it is an experience. It is kind of activity students will enjoy while doing it and will remember later on. Best of all, it is these sort of multi-sensory collaborative activities that effectively create memories, encoding the learning experience in a way students are more likely to recall later on.

Through these highly immersive learning experiences, our students will inordinately take ownership of their learning, develop higher-order critical thinking skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation, become reflective learners, and develop an insatiable appetite for more learning.

Below are more specific benefits and impact this grant would furnish based on the needs of our student population:

Social & Emotional Learning: Students with social and emotional needs are granted nonthreatening opportunities to build and explore self-management and responsible decision-making skills as they must problem solve in real time and make critical choices to succeed in the task of interpreting the clues to unlock the game’s ultimate goal. In the post-game debrief, students build self-awareness by engaging in metacognitive discussions about why they made certain decisions, how their actions affected the overall success of the team, and how their role could be improved in future iterations of gameplay.

Second Language Learners: Our second language learners will be able to practice communication skills in an academic setting closing the academic language gap. When playing a Breakout EDU game, these students will learn through communication with peers.

Puzzles are scaffolded by difficulty allowing ELL students to work up to their current academic level. While playing they are required to restate other students’ comments, asking a question, or adding their own idea. There are many opportunities to demonstrate their thought process using key vocabulary and gather as much data as possible about a particular puzzle in order to make connections to prior learning.

Special Education: Breakout EDU games creates opportunities for every student to have a voice. Students work in small groups to solve puzzles in order to open locks. The tactile experience of trying to open a physical lock blended with the need to apply a variety of content knowledge and academic skills creates a safe learning environment where learners of all abilities can contribute.

Games can be modified or adapted based on the student’s individual education program. 

Budget Narrative

The Breakout EDU School Bundle includes 6 Breakout EDU Kits and 6 Platform Access Codes. The kits and platforms will utilized in kindergarten through grade 5.

Included in the purchase is full access to the Breakout EDU Platform with over 800 Breakout EDU challenges, encompassing all subjects. Teachers can create and assign games to their classes. In addition, students can also create their own challenges, which once reviewed, can be shared with a class game library. Also included is the Student Game Design Course to facilitate the game design process.

Each Breakout EDU kit includes the following physical items:
• 1 Large Breakout EDU Locking Box
• 1 Small Breakout EDU Locking Box
• 1 Hasp
• 1 Alphabet Multilock
• 1 Directional Multilock
• 1 Color Wheels for Multilock
• 1 Shape Wheels for Multilock
• 1 Number Wheels for Multilock
• 1 Three-digit lock
• 1 Four-digit lock
• 1 Key lock (with three identical keys)
• 1 Deck of Reflection Cards
• 1 Red Lens Viewer
• 1 UV light
• 1 Invisible ink pen
• 1 USB thumb drive (blank)
• 2 Hint cards

 

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