From Break Out to Break IN

Turn any ho-hum centers activity into a game-changing REVERSE escape room!

Break IN

Busy day! Thank you to everyone who came out bright and early this morning to get a feel for #QRBreakIN and the reverse escape room approach to lesson design. More to come. But for now, here’s the on the run session description cut and paste job:

Class escape rooms are all the rage, but the typical “divide and conquer to escape the room” lesson plan is still limited in ensuring that all students receive access to all puzzles and unit content, which can present a real sticking point when trying to move away from traditional lecture entirely.

Now imagine a class Escape Room in *reverse*, where student teams compete to break IN to a new unit of study, exploring unit content by solving asynchronous puzzles in a race against their peers and the clock. No boxes or locks required! The REVERSE escape room (a caffeinated update on old-school “centers”) captures all the fun and excitement of a game-changing class escape room, while allowing ALL students to self-pace and explore unit content in a way that moves them more efficiently through all of the material you’d otherwise have to cram into a “Death By PowerPoint” lecture.

Click here to access the complete slide deck from today’s presentation!

Author: John

John Meehan (@MeehanEDU) is an English teacher and school instructional coach at Bishop O’Connell High School in Arlington, Virginia. He began his teaching career in 2010 as a career switcher through The New Teacher Project, after spending five years working in social media and event marketing. He is a 2017 ASCD Emerging Leader, and an alumnus of the 2016-2018 Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Teacher Advisory Council. In 2016, he was named one of Arlington, Virginia’s “40 Under 40” by the Leadership Center for Excellence. He is a past presenter and regular attendee at educational conferences throughout the United States, including the annual conference for National Catholic Education Association, ASCD Empower19, and the Play Like a Champion Today: Character Education Through Sports summer conference at the University of Notre Dame. He’s an avid runner who’s completed more than three dozen marathons, half marathons, long-distance road relays, mud runs, and obstacle course races. John lives in Silver Spring, Maryland.

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