Engaging educators with Escape rooms

I first got the idea of an escape room back when I was an educator. Students often dread going for exam revision at the end of the semester. So I wanted to come up with something that is engaging, but at the same time helps them to reinforce their understanding.

I got the idea of an escape room through journals (see the Supporting resources section below for details). So I ran that escape room activity for my students, and I could actually see the joy my student experienced throughout the process. It really helped them remember the knowledge and the concepts that they learned throughout the semester through an active learning activity.

So when I came to this role as an educational designer, when we were trying to create an activity for educators I figured, since students and educators learn better when they are actively participating instead of sitting passively and just consuming all the information, why not try out the escape room activity as well?

The result was amazing! I would say more than 95% of the participants truly enjoyed the experience. They engaged through collaborative activities and the feedback was very good.

I actually presented this initiative at the teaching and learning conference by Advance HE (Higher Education) on the impact and how much improvement there has been throughout the two years I've run the initiative, which also includes the feedback workshop, interactive online module, feedback showcase, feedback resource and the feedback escape room.

Seeing the engagement and excitement of participants cracking the puzzles and getting the code correct and proceeding to the next one, it gives me that satisfaction of all the work that I've done.

The great thing about this activity is that you can use the same template to run the escape room with different themes. I've run an escape room workshop in different streams of science, for example biology, chemistry and  physics. At Monash, I've run workshops on feedback literacy and sustainability.

So you can download the Escape room template and can change it according to your workshop subject. Of course your creativity is the limit, you can come up with other types of puzzles too.

• For a 30-minute class period use 4 puzzles. If the classes are longer (60 minutes) the students may be able to complete 8.
• Be prepared to provide subtle hints to groups who are struggling. If a group has been working for over 7-10 minutes on a puzzle, give them a hand so they can feel some progression within the game.
• The initial set up designing the questions might take a lot of time. But like once you have that ready for the first time, it doesn't take as much effort if you reuse it.
• Start small. Instead of having 8 puzzles at once, maybe try 3 or 4 first just to try it out if it works with the students. If the type of activity helps students engage and connect with the concept, then from there you can extend the activity to a larger scale.
• Ideally, I would recommend having around 3 to 4 participants in a group. When you have too few in a group, they might struggle to solve the puzzle but if you have anything more than four participants in a group, there might be some participants who are just sitting at the side and watching and observing.
• This activity can be done whether you have a small or a large class. The smallest group that I've run for this activity is probably 12 participants, while the biggest escape room that I've run recently is about 65 people. The amount of preparation and printing increase with the larger group.