What Is An Escape Room And How Can It Be Applied To Education?
Teachers are finding it increasingly difficult to hold their students’ attention; It is a challenge they must face every day, and the task is not always easy. For students to be interested in the subject, it is necessary to find innovative and creative techniques and methodologies. A great alternative is the escape room .
The escape room , or in Spanish ‘escape room’, is a method that is currently on the rise. This gaming experience, which comes from the adventure games or scape games created in Japan in 2007, is being transferred to the educational environment with great success.
In the Anglo-Saxon environment, the escape room has been used in classrooms for several years. Today, this technique has been adopted in many other schools around the world. Next, we will see some elements to understand what an escape room is and how to apply it to education.
The concept of escape room
The basic concept of an escape room is pretty straightforward. It is about leaving a group of people, in this case the students, in a room for a specified time. To escape from confinement, they must solve clues and riddles that will have been defined previously.
In order to solve the riddle, students will be forced to use their knowledge, intellectual skills, and logical reasoning. In addition, they will have a time limit to solve the clues and activities that they find along the way.
This game has a story or narrative that varies depending on the educational objectives you want to set. The participants have a common goal, which will force them to communicate and work as a team. They will also need to demonstrate their commitment and ability to solve problems.
The escape room can become a very complete educational methodology. With this resource, students usually feel very motivated. It is an excellent way not only to generate interest and participation in certain subjects, but also to achieve fundamental objectives of education.
How to implement the escape room in the classroom
To implement an escape room in the classroom, it is necessary to take into consideration some aspects. First, the teacher must design the activity based on the age and cognitive and emotional development of their students.
It is also essential that the times of each activity are adapted to the amount and degree of difficulty of the challenges that students will have to solve.
The fundamental thing is to be very clear about the objectives of the escape room that is going to be designed. These should be as specific as possible so that they can be evaluated once the experience is over. In the same way, it is necessary to determine the challenges based on the subject that you want to teach.
You can start with clues and riddles of little difficulty; later, we will have the option of increasing the complexity, as the students solve them. The activity should have a common thread, which will make it easier to capture their attention and interest.
As we mentioned previously, you should choose a topic that suits the age and interests of the group; Based on that, you have to develop all the clues around that topic. It can be, for example, the dinosaurs or the pyramids of Egypt; It is advisable to use challenges of different types, both intellectual and physical.
The escape room can be adapted to a physical space depending on the possibilities of each educational center. However, there is also the possibility of using a virtual escape room . For this, there are some digital platforms available.
What is the escape room for in the educational environment?
The escape room is, without a doubt, a very useful tool in the educational environment. It is a strategy that promotes student motivation and participation; it also facilitates immersion in learning with the ‘learning by doing’ technique.
It is a fun, experiential experience that will help students develop their imagination and solve problems using all the intellectual tools, logical reasoning and creative skills available to them.
One of the most important points of the escape room in the classroom is that it encourages dialogue and teamwork. Participants will have to work together if they want to achieve the goal: escape from confinement.
In short, this escape room technique must be considered as a valuable tool to enhance students’ ability to think and evolve. Why not take advantage of activities that motivate children for their development?
