Skyrocket Student Engagement with a 360° Digital Escape Room

Student engagement can seem like the “she loves me not” game. That’s where a digital escape room can change the rules of love in the classroom!

Consider this: an adoring gentleman picks off a flower’s petals while saying, “She loves me”, or “She loves me not.”

The way I see it, the guy has a 50% chance of this girl loving him.

Student engagement can sometimes seems like an on-again, off-again endeavor

If you are anything like me, you realize teachers face similar odds with student engagement.

Many students are engaged on Mondays.
Most students are not engaged on Fridays.
Hopefully students are engaged in the mornings.
It’s likely that many students are less engaged in the afternoon.

Unengaged student sleeping at school — Unengaged student at school

We’re going to change those odds. Dramatically, in fact – in two easy steps! Wanna know how?

Immerse them in a learning experience they never want to leave with very little prep on your part
Give their rockin’ little brains some novel stimuli

Hold on to your teacher plan book. You are about to get a big dose of SWAG!

Power-up Student Engagement with an Immersive Experience

Student engagement has been a challenge for teachers since the dawn of teaching.

Escape rooms became popular socially around 2014. As soon as I experienced one, my teacher brain immediately thought:

“How can I recreate this NEW and ENGAGING experience for my students?”

Escape rooms are thrilling!

By the way, if you haven’t conquered a physical escape room yet, give it a whirl! World of Escapes has a search tool so you can find a physical escape room near you.

Here’s what World of Escapes has to say about (physical) escape rooms:

For an hour, you’ll be locked in a room left to find hidden clues, keys or puzzles, and solve them to escape. Whether you’ll step out as a winner depends on your wit, inventiveness and teamwork.

Digital Escape Room — Escape rooms immerse you in a scenario and you cannot escape until you have unlocked all of the clues.

I know what you’re thinking . . .that sounds a lot like “the real world”?!?!?!

Exactly.

I wanted my students’ experience as similar to mine as possible.

An immersive experience would be best because that’s where my own learning – and excitement – occurred.

I yearned to create an experience that was MORE THAN DIGITAL.

So . . . I created a 360° digital escape room.

The 360° part gives students the feeling of moving around a physical space.

In a 360° image (i.e., the foundation of good digital escape room), students move the picture around and see objects (and clues) from different angles.

The puzzles themselves also ignite excitement in the brain. I put about 8 different puzzles in each of my escape rooms. Here are a few different types.

360° Digital Escape Rooms, are the Novelty Your Students’ Brains Need

As a teacher, you probably already know, the world is in the midst of a global reskilling revolution. In a recent World Economic Forum report, one thing is crystal clear:

All industries are changing rapidly and require workers and training professionals to shift toward a lifelong learning model.

Any one of us . . . may have a certain training or skill set and find out we need retooling. Think virtual learning in a moment’s notice!!!

And, you did it! You rock! But, we already knew that right.

Well — digital escape rooms – are another way to show yourself and the world how well you rock your students’ learning!

I know you care about your students. You want to give them the tools they need to succeed.

That skill set for success, my friend, is called life-long learning.

Even though the Common Core hasn’t set standards for life-learning, you can help ensure your students get regular doses of life-long learning!

How? You ask.

Put them in situations where they experience – what neuroscientists call – novel stimuli. AKA . . . “new experiences”.

Newsflash!

We’re tackling the tricky spot that might have been the ONE thing holding you back from increased student engagement any time of day, week, or year.

Check out these 4 neuroscience facts about novelty from lifehacker.

“When we see something new, we see it has a potential for rewarding us in some way.
This potential that lies in new things motivates us to explore our environment for rewards.
The brain learns that the stimulus, once familiar, has no reward associated with it and so it loses its potential.
For this reason, only completely new objects activate . . . increase our levels of dopamine [the feel good neurotransmitter].”

NEW stimuli is the foundation of student learning and student engagement!

But, waaaaaaaaaaaaaait . . . that’s not all to this story!

360° Digital Escape Room help Students “Learn how they Learn”

Novel stimuli increases the brain’s ability to learn for 15-30 minutes AFTER people were done exploring something new.

The magic: Anything you do after a novel 360° digital escape room has a much higher chance of getting woven into those dynamic little brains you care so much about!

Because life-long learning requires one to know HOW they learn, I use a reflection sheet that keep students engaged in the learning process EVEN AFTER they’ve escaped.

Here are the questions I put in my reflection sheet:

What mental strategies did you use when you didn’t know what to do?
How could you be more successful in the future?
Name one thing each of your group members did to help escape the 360° digital escape room.
Describe one way your group helped each other during the 360° digital escape room?
What lessons BEFORE today helped you the most today?

psst . . . an additional benefit of having a reflection sheet in your 360° digital escape room is that it keeps EARLY FINISHERS engaged.