Power of Breakout

As the school year began to wrap up, I asked my students what they would like to do on the last day of class. I expected to hear... nothing, watch a video, time to chat with friends,etc. Instead they requested to do a Breakout!

I began the school year with a breakout activity and they did two digital breakouts this year so I thought why not end the year with one. So I chose to use one I found on http://www.breakoutedu.com/ called the GAFE Gauntlet. It was created by a Google Innovator teacher and used almost every GAFE tool that my students experimented with throughout the school year. It even included a Google Voice number that my students had to call for a clue; they loved that I allowed them to use their cell phone in class.

I expected that with it being the last full day of classes, that some of my students would be interested in the breakout and the others would just kinda play along. But to my happy surprise, in all four of my eighth grade classes, every student was engaged in the activity! Working in groups of 6-7 students, every group broke out of the box in about 25-30 minutes. They worked together and were all on task, listening to each other and encouraging one another. I have never had such an engaged group of students at the end of the school year and from now on this is how I will always end my school year!