Digital breakouts are basically escape rooms gone digital. Teachers can transform the curriculum into an interactive game for students to play. Digital breakouts are versatile because there are a plethora of ways to create them. For example, digital breakouts can include posters, videos, hidden texts, fake messages, and so many other tools! Digital breakouts can be created on a website with various locks to "unlock" a prize or win the game.
How can I use Digital Breakouts?
I can use digital breakouts in my classroom for numerous purposes. I can use them as an icebreaker on the first day of class to welcome students to my class and introduce them to the curriculum. Also, I could use it as a review for content taught in a previous section. I find digital breakouts interesting because I can use it as a group activity, as individual class work, or as a fun assignment to be completed at home! The digital breakout I created above is of the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War. I include numerous clues for students to decipher what the answer to each code is. Included in my digital breakout are canva images, a google form, an animoto video, a word scramble, a jigsaw image, a QR code, and a weebly website. Therefore, I can take numerous tech tools and combine them into a singular website for a digital breakout.
Which Domain of the Danielson Framework do Digital Breakouts Correlate with?
Digital breakouts could work with many different components, especially within Domain 3. However, digital breakouts correlate best with Component 3B: Using Questions and Discussion Techniques. Digital breakouts often require different questions for students to unlock the locks, so using different levels of questioning allows students to decipher the answers. Before and after the digital breakout, I think it would be effective to have a discussion session with the class to see their expectations and then their reactions and responses to it. By varying the types of questions in the digital breakout, students can be required to think outside the box to either locate or think of the answers.
References: The Framework for Teaching Evaluating Instrument Domain 3: Instruction. (2011). Retrieved December 9, 2018, from https://www.danielsongroup.org/framework/