Escape Rooms – a great tool to help assess students’ knowledge and understanding
Escape rooms are an innovative and exciting educational tool that allows students to use their knowledge and learning in a challenging and fun way. They allow students to use their critical thinking and teamwork skills to solve a variety of puzzles - the attraction of this being in the “gamification” of learning!
A typical escape room challenge will see participants being “locked in” a room (for a variety of reasons), with the aim of “breaking out”. Whether it be solving a crime, travelling through time to fix something, or rescuing presents stolen from Santa, the thrill of solving puzzles to get to an end result with limited time is an exciting challenge. After each puzzle is solved, the participants receive a clue which leads them to unlock a new puzzle/challenge as well as providing a further clue to help solve the final “escape” puzzle.
Typically, our escape rooms are designed to be played by a whole class split into smaller groups of students as they compete against each other in teams. The escape room normally takes under an hour to successfully complete and students can be awarded winner’s certificates.
You can find all of our Escape Room resources here.
Why escape rooms are successful for learning
Social & Teamwork Skills
They enable students to work together to achieve a common goal. We design our escape rooms in a way that is difficult to complete individually and therefore requires students to use the skills, and strengths of everyone in the team in order to successfully complete the challenge.
Problem Solving Skills
Our games include a wide range of puzzles from solving riddles, deciphering codes, and escaping mazes. These often involve students having to think outside the box and use different methods to be able to unlock the next clue.
Time Management Skills
As teams race against each other to successfully escape, they must ensure they use their time spent on each puzzle wisely. Our rooms are designed so each team can view how the other teams are doing, adding an extra layer of competitiveness to the challenge!
Escape rooms are handy interactive tools to boost thinking and problem-solving skills. Research shows those students who take part in escape room activities become more engaged in their learning, have higher critical-thinking skills, and are able to find quicker solutions to complex problems.
Cre8tive Resources now has over 300 Escape Rooms across 15 different common subject areas!