BreakoutEDU 411

What is BreakoutEDU? 

Simply put, participants solve a series of problems in order to unlock the main Breakout box. Clues are content related and typically involve a mixture of physical and digital tasks. Breakout can be content specific, team building, or even professional development.

What do I need?

Breakout instructions - many made by classroom educators - will take no more than what is in the breakout kit (minus some office supplies). I was able to put together  my own for $60 (which involved me getting 3 extra locks because I did locks that came as pairs. That way it was less per lock and I could add in more puzzles if I wanted) using Walmart roll-back plastic toolboxes and locks and finished up the kit with locks from Amazon. Or you can order a kit from www.breakoutedu.com. Some people are able to get their kits paid for by Donors Choose grants. Just use Amazon and you can get 2-3 kits. Crowd-source it with a team of teachers and there should be enough for the smaller group Breakouts. Kit includes:

• USB drive
• 4-digit lock
• 3-digit lock box (I made mine with a smaller plastic toolbox and a small 3-digit lock)
• large Breakout box (some games require the little box to be in the big one, so I would 
• directional lock
• word lock - 5 letters
  
• key lock
• hasp 
• invisible ink pen
• UV flashlight (I bought the pens with the UV light on the cap. Many breakouts involve separating batteries from flashlight. I just take out the bulb and battery combo)
• some games will ask for little things like paperclips or whatnot, but it shouldn't require additional items that wouldn't be commonly found in a school. In fact, there are a lot of cool ciphers and puzzle ideas on the Facebook group and Pintrest. 

How do I start?

Sign in to breakoutedu.com - MAKE SURE TO CHECK THE PAGE AFTER YOU SUBMIT YOUR INFO! THE PASSWORD IS IN THE INSTRUCTIONS! 

Get a sense of how a breakout works by trying it out with loved ones. I knew I wanted to create a dystopia Breakout so I picked Dr. Johnson's breakout as a trial run. I hid the zombie virus anecdote in my large breakout box - it was for my hubby so I made sure it was a proper payment for giving up his time to do this  ;) - set up the game in the playroom, and watched him go to work. He had to do all the steps to get into the large box while also avoiding the red herrings out into the game (and a sneaky wife who hid things under the blinds). 

Make sure you sign up to the Facebook group! People will show off neat ideas and share tips.

Can I make my own?

That's what I did! I started with what I wanted my students to cover content-wise and then I looked for opportunities for the texts/visuals/concepts to fit one of the types of keys. From there, I created clues. For example, I knew I wanted the students to look at the etymology of utopia and dystopia. When I was on etymonline.com, I noticed it mentions who coined the terms. I decided to play on the homonym of "coin" and created a coin to put in the box that would lead participants to a letter lock clue. 

If making your own sounds daunting - I saved time by adapting parts of a webquest I've used in the past - you can instead add to an existing BreakoutEDU. Add in a couple more puzzles to get to existing clues or add more puzzles with new locks. 

Breakout in lower elementary:

Breakout in upper elementary: 

Breakout in middle school (this is created by 7th graders for 8th graders!):

Breakout in high school:

March Madness: Reflective, Competitive PD Week 2

Week 1 results: We won! ELA will now square off against PE.

Week 2:
Reflection of observation: 5 points

The need to model is so vital, especially with technology. Merely have technology directions or just watching technology is not helpful. Having Mr. H model the step and then participants do that step, and then him model the next and participants do the next, is really helpful. For flipping lessons I think explicitly stating to students "You will need to pause the video and do the step for your own topic" or some similar direct instruction is a good idea. While it may be obvious to us, it is not always obvious to the kids. Which makes me think about how flipped classroom instruction needs to be modeled for kids too, where the teacher pretends she is the student and models how she will pause the video or go back and re-watch. Sort of like a think aloud.

Entry 1: 1 point

Describe a specific instructional adjustment (e.g., materials, sequencing, etc.) which you have made based on the needs assessment of your students.
During a do now where student selected the most important part of each paragraph, I quickly saw the students were not selecting the same thing I would select. I decided to see if students could identify the main idea and support details in a paragraph. When I saw the majority of students were not able to correctly identifying that, I decided to post-pone my original main lesson about persuasive techniques and instead paired students and gave them post-it notes. I then modeled how to place a piece of information from the model paragraph on each post it. I then talked through the process with the students, using the post-its as manipulatives to find main idea. I assigned each partnership a paragraph (with each paragraph having two partnerships). After pairs determined main idea, I had them match up with the other pairing and discuss. I went to each group of four to check for understanding. I then created a closure activity where students used the same strategy on a different paragraph and submit. This is a lesson I came up with on the fly based upon what I know of how 8th graders learn best: providing manipulatives and grouping to make abstract ideas more concrete.

Entry 2:1 point

Describe the approaches you have used to monitor classroom performance and to provide feedback to students regarding their progress in academic skills.
Plickers have been a great help. It allows me to assess and correct. I also like commending students who do an exceptional job. For example, on a test with an essay, I started a class list on my board of essays that are "Drop the Mic Worthy". Students who did an exceptional job had their names added throughout the day as I graded. This not only provided feedback, but also encouraged students to try to go above and beyond and really pay attention to the sophistication of syntax and diction.

Entry 3: 1 point

Describe how you assisted your students who were experiencing serious attendance problems.
One of the best way for me to help students who are unable to come to school is by me taking video of my lesson (the part than can't really be translated via assignment) and providing that for students. Through use of edmodo and embedding videos, students are able to not fall too far behind.

Entry 4:1 point

Describe your approach in working with students who were failing or in danger of failing.
Most of the time, student who are failing are failing due to missing assignments. I've tried taking advantage of getting student's work during the school day. For our half-days I contacted the 7th period teacher of all my failing students to see if the child could come in during that extended 7th period to complete work. Coaches have also been wonderfully flexible, allowing students to come in to complete during PE.

Entry 5: 1 point

Today my inspiration comes from grading my students' tests. I developed a new way of having kids write explanation. While it is by far still the biggest issue, I can't express how much better the explanation has gotten. They are now, finally, referring to what is in quotations. For the most part they are connecting it back to the assertion. Now I just have to develop a strategy to get them to do it almost 100% of the time. Cafe Squidd really inspires some deep things!

March Madness: Reflective, Competitive PD

What is March Madness PD?

My school's PD committee rolled out a new competition yesterday that involves departments squaring off in brackets against each other every week of March. Each department tries to get points based on certain reflective activities. 1 point for a journal entry, 5 points for a 15 minute peer observation with reflection, and 5 points for a personal video reflection. Instead of doing it as an interactive notebook and suffering through writing journal entries by hand (My handwriting is atrocious if I don't go slowly, and our "PD coach" aka partner from another department, has to submit the points for us. So I'd be subjecting my coworker to the fun game we teachers often have to play: guess what the heck this says!) I will be doing it blog form.

Week 1:Science vs. ELA

Entry 1: Our first entry is supposed to be a reflection of the quotation to the right, so batter up! (I know March Madness is basketball, not baseball, but Spring Training just started so...Go Red Sox!)

To me, what is reflection looks very different for a novice teacher compared to an experienced one. I think the uncertainty of the first year, where you just sort of assume that if the kids don't get something, it is probably something wrong with the lesson, is a good mentality for a teacher to have (Note: that same mentality coming from outside - media, parents, politicians, admin - is actually counterproductive to a teacher because it is fairly disheartening). It makes it where that reflection of "how can I make this better/more effective/stick more" and I would be back to the drawing board and develop different strategies. I think because I had to create whole new lessons to "fix" unsuccessful lessons, that reflection component was now more apparent. I learned how to be a better teacher by my reflection.

For experienced teachers, we are literally reflecting as we go, adapting as we see the misconceptions and struggles of our classes. My lesson first period can look markedly different from my lesson three classes from then. We are reflecting over lunch, reflecting as we grade something and see the same errors happening again and again. Anyone who hand grades a multiple choice assignment is probably getting more from it than someone who is running a scantron. Do a hand done and after several students have missed a question, the teacher is reaching for the test to figure out if she coded the answer incorrectly or if there was something in the question or distractor that was unfair. By the end of hand-grading, I am already hatching plans to help my students succeed next time.

Entry 2: although I love how tech provides opportunities to create and express, I feel a marked difference when I physically start moving manipulatives around. As I was reflecting on my digital portfolio, I quickly realized organizing and grouping ideas on a piece of paper is pretty onerous. So I decided to instead put each thing on a post-it so I could move things around. It wasn't 5 post-it's in when I suddenly had a couple grouping ideas. The power of manipulatives to help catagorize can not be understated. It makes me think about how I can provide more opportunities for my students to organize their own ideas.

Entry 3:

How the Backwards Bicycle is a Must See for Students and Teachers

Videos are a wonderful prompt for writing and class discussion. "The Backwards Brain Bicycle" by Smarter Every Day is my favorite video to begin a PD as well as totally accessible for my middle school students. The connections to be made are deep and rich. Watch it and see how many connections you can make to your own classroom!

The best rule of thumb for getting the discussion to be its best is for all individuals to write for 7-10 minutes after, making connections and expressing their thoughts. As Tom Ramano says in Clearing the Way, “During class discussions, I prefer to avoid the domino effect - the phenomenon that occurs when one student states an opinion emphatically and all the opinions after that one fall right in behind, unremarkably similar.” And so he always asks to his students to write prior to class discussion.

Great for the beginning of a faculty meeting or as a way of encouraging kids to not give up when faced with challenging learning.