Escaping Traditional Classrooms Through Escape Rooms

Impact to My Classroom

# of Students Impacted: 600

     Through the years, I have been very fortunate to have a number of grants funded through Champions for Learning.  The escape room grant is the most impactful one yet.  The positive outcomes and results of the escape room activities have far exceeded my expectations.  The escape rooms conducted have been used as a learning strategy to review content learned in classes.  It is very much an “out of the box” method of learning that ALL students truly enjoy.  I have seen students who, during a typical class session, are not interested in the content, bored, and even glued to their phones, come alive during the escape room activity.  These students often become engaged in the activity and demonstrate leadership and problem solving skills that we did not know they possessed.  During the escape room activities, I have heard comments such as, “We have never talked to each other this much”. “This is the most fun I have ever had in class.”  “Can we do another one tomorrow.”  “I wish we could do this every day.” 

       The word has spread around campus that I create escape room learning activities, and I have received quite a few request from teachers to create one for their class.  During the 3 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I conducted 5 different ones.  Some of the classes in which I conducted an escape room are English I, English II, English III, and  geometry.  My wife is the media specialist at Cypress Palm Middle, and she asked me to create one on ancient Egypt which I did.  The 6^th graders loved it.

      I am also the National Honor Society advisor.  We held a miniconference in November, and I created an escape room as one of the activities for that event.  Again, the students loved the activity as we used it to teach them about the organization.  As part of NHS’s community service, we are conducting Game Night at a number of elementary schools in the area, and they have asked me to create escape rooms for this activity.  I have used content from their curriculum for the clues and puzzles in those escape rooms.

     So, this grant has not only impacted many of our Palmetto Ridge High School students, but also students in area schools. 

      During my last escape room, we were fortunate to have guests from the Suncoast Credit Union join us to observe grant funds in action.  We had a brief conversation about me possibly creating an escape room activity for their staff which I look forward to.  I would like to extend an offer to anyone reading this summary that I would love to create an escape room for your work place staff.  The activity builds teamwork, helps individuals bond, and challenges one’s problem solving and critical thinking skills.