Gamifying Instruction and Engaging Students With Breakout EDU

Abstract

As technology advances at an unprecedented rate and the job market continually evolves, educators are challenged with effectively engaging students and preparing them for success after graduation. The current landscape requires a shift from lecture-based, content-focused instruction to hands-on, student-centered techniques that foster lifelong learning competencies. Gamification provides an effective approach for creating exciting, active learning experiences that promote critical mindsets such as collaboration, problem-solving, persistence, and adaptability. These abilities are especially valuable for first-year students who are making the transition from high school to college research and learning. This article provides an example of how the authors have implemented Breakout EDU games to engage first-year students and help them develop skills and mindsets for success in college and beyond.

Quelling the Boredom with Alternative Instruction: Augmented Reality, Escape Kits, and Scavenger Hunts

“…Multitudes of studies have chronicled the impact that gamification and game-based learning have had as an instructional method on diverse fields with a particular concentration on K-12 and higher education (O'Brien & Pitera, 2019;Subhash & Cudney, 2018;Hanus & Fox, 2015). Focus primarily centered on how gamifying an educational scenario effected motivation, and engagement of learners, as well as how crucial both are to gamification success in enhancing learning (Subhash & Cudney, 2018).…”

“…Many academic librarians taught the development of research skills to facilitate a learner's critical thinking connection with research methodologies and information understanding. These learners absorbed the research lessons through their own personal, social group, or discipline understanding of the world, which meant teaching librarians faced the challenge of teaching information literacy to a classroom full of individual, diverse learners, all while on a strict time limit (Dent & Schneidermann, 2020;O'Brien & Pitera, 2019). Academic librarians were faced with an overwhelming mission.…”

Resource Review: Breakout EDU

“…to providing the answer (O'Brien & Pitera, 2019). Ensuring learning objectives are met requires engaging and supporting youth during the game play through the use of a storyline, hints, rewards, and verbal encouragement (Martens & Crawford, 2019;Nicholson, 2018).…”

“…Escape rooms, live-action social games requiring groups to work together to solve a series of puzzles in a period of time (Nicholson, 2018;Rouse, 2017), are becoming a popular gamebased learning strategy for the classroom (Mayer & Toates, 2016). Game-based learning, which is the application of self-contained games in an educational context to meet learning objectives, is a growing trend in education (O'Brien & Pitera, 2019). Research suggests that digital gamebased learning can improve academic achievement and learning attitudes for many subjects including English, science, math, and social studies (Lin et al, 2013;Partovi & Reza, 2019;Rouse, 2017).…”

“…15 Issue 6 DOI 10.5195/jyd.2020.919 Resource Review: Breakout EDU 327 Current literature focuses on using escape rooms in post-secondary environments to study topics such as sport and exercise science (Humphrey, 2017), medicine (Wu et al, 2018), pharmacy (Eukel et al, 2017), and information/research literacy (Pun, 2017;O'Brien & Pitera, 2019), as well as with high school chemistry students (Nguyen, 2018). This literature suggests that youth engagement in escape rooms can develop "soft skills," including cooperation, communication, leadership, collaboration, critical thinking, teamwork, and problem-solving skills (Humphrey, 2017;Nicholson, 2018;O'Brien & Pitera, 2019;Rouse, 2017;Wu et al, 2018). Use of escape rooms may provide youth development professionals with a unique way to develop these life skills in youth.…”