Hybrid Workshop "Educational Escape Room in Teaching" on January 26 & 27, 2023
Do you like playing with Lego? You would also solve a riddle on a t-shirt? And do you think that there should be much more room for creativity an team work in teaching? Escape rooms are live-action team-based games in which players work together to discover clues, solve puzzles, and accomplish tasks within a time limit to reach a specific goal. Besides being a very popular pastime for people of all ages, they have recently started to gain momentum in academic circles as educational tools. Research findings have established that educational escape games can create immersion as they combine the strengths of storytelling and gameplay, therefore eliciting high engagement and promoting successful learning.
Why this workshop is important for you.
- Background of the workshop.
Following the shift from traditional didactic classroom models to the adoption of more learner-centered active learning approaches, escape rooms are gaining popularity as alternative learning and assessment environments designed to enhance students' learning and 21st century skills in primary, secondary, higher education, and professional development programs. An educational escape room (EER) can be defined as an instructional method requiring learners to participate in collaborative playful activities explicitly designed for domain knowledge acquisition, skill development or behavioral change so that they can accomplish a specific goal (e.g., escape from a physical or virtual room, solve a murder mystery, or break into a vault) by solving puzzles linked to unambiguous learning objectives in a limited amount of time. Research indicates that, due to their playful nature which favors positive behavior, EERs can enhance learners' motivation, engagement, and time management, increase confidence in critical thinking and decision-making, improve knowledge acquisition and academic performance. They can also encourage social interaction, which is very important in the new era of increased hybrid delivery brought upon by COVID-19.
- Background to the workshop.
Following the shift from traditional didactic classroom models to the introduction of more learner-centered active learning approaches, escape rooms are gaining popularity as alternative learning and assessment environments - designed to enhance the learning and skills of 21st century students in school and higher education. The Educational Escape Room (EER) can be defined as an instructional method in which learners participate in collaborative game-based activities, thereby establishing new skills alongside knowledge application and acquisition by solving puzzles linked to clear learning objectives (e.g. solve a murder mystery or break into a safe) in a limited amount of time. Research shows that EERs can improve learners' motivation, engagement, time management, confidence in critical thinking and decision making due to their playful and positive behavioral nature. EERs can also have an increasingly positive impact on knowledge acquisition and academic performance. In view of the hybrid development in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, EERs also stimulate the increasingly important social exchange.
What we plan to do in the workshop.
- Content of the workshop
This workshop will Introduce participants to Room2Educ8, a conceptual framework for EER design based on Design Thinking principles, that can be adapted to any subject and escape room type. This framework allows practitioners to develop their creative confidence, which is required for game-based learning to be fully realized, by engaging in hands-on projects that focus on building empathy, promoting a bias toward action, encouraging ideation, and fostering active problem-solving. Its process can be described as a cycle of (1) empathising and observing, (2) defining the problem, (3) contextualizing, (4) designing puzzles, (5) briefing and (6) debriefing the participants, (7) prototyping and playtesting, (8) documenting, and (9) evaluating (Fig. 1), with the designers also reflecting and devising throughout the cycle. By the end of the workshop, participants are expected to be able to: demonstrate an understanding of puzzles, themes, and challenges commonly used in escape rooms; critically analyze and identify educational purposes for using ideas based on escape rooms; and use Room2Educ8 to plan, design, facilitate, and evaluate their own educational escape rooms. >>> Click here to find a detailed workshop plan.
- Contents of the workshop
This workshop introduces participants to Room2Educ8, a conceptual framework for EER design based on Design Thinking principles that can be adapted to any content and escape room type. This framework allows practitioners to develop their creative confidence needed to fully realize game-based learning by engaging in hands-on projects that focus on building empathy, propensity to act, idea generation and active problem solving. The process can be described as a cycle of (1) empathy and observation, (2) problem definition, (3) contextualization, (4) puzzle design, (5) briefing, (6) participant debriefing, (7) prototyping and playtesting, (8) documentation and (9) evaluation (Fig. 1), with designers self-reflecting and continuously developing their ideas throughout the cycle. By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to: develop an understanding of puzzles, themes and challenges commonly used in escape rooms; develop a critical analysis and identification of educational purposes for using ideas based on escape rooms; and use Room2Educ8 to plan, design, facilitate and evaluate their own escape rooms.
>>> Click here to download a detailed workshop plan.
These results will improve your skills.
- Outcomes and documentation
Learning Objectives and Outcomes: After this workshop participants should be able to:
- Critically understand the key principles and applications of escape rooms in educational settings.
- Use a conceptual framework to build empathy for students, identify student needs, and translate them into educational escape room specifications.
- Work as a member of a development team to design, prototype, and evaluate an educational escape room.
- Document and critically reflect on the use of educational escape rooms.
Documentation of the results: input is available to participants as a PDF, Process and results from the work of the participants are summarized (online or PDF), Summary of the workshop by the organizers.
- Results and documentation
Learning objectives and outcomes: After this workshop, participants should be able to
- Understand the key principles and applications of escape rooms in educational settings.
- develop a conceptual framework to identify learners' abilities and needs and translate them into Edcuational Escape Room specifications.
- work as a member of a development team to design, prototype and evaluate an Edcuational Escape Room.
- Critically reflect on Educational Escape Rooms and document the process and results.
Documentation of the results: The input is available to the participants as a PDF. The process and the results of the participants' work are also summarized by the organizers (online or PDF).
Panagiotis is the king of EER-Applications
- Lecturer
Dr Panagiotis Fotaris is Principal Lecturer at the University of Brighton. He is the module leader for Game Design and Development, Narrative Design, and Design Thinking. He was Course Leader for BSc (Hons) Digital Games Development and BSc (Hons) Computer Science for Games from 2018 to 2022. Furthermore he is an active researcher in the area of Game-based Learning. He chaired the 14th and 15th European Conference on Games-Based Learning (ECGBL 2020, ECGBL2021) and the 21st European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL 2022). Dr Fotaris has been a technical committee member for more than 30 international conferences. He has authored or co-authored 32 papers in peer-reviewed journals and international conference proceedings (Google Scholar Citations: 880). He is also Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and Certified Scrum Master (CSM). Before entering academia, Dr Fotaris held a variety of roles in the Creative Industries, including mashup artist (soundcloud.com/bynar, 38 tracks, 600,000+plays), radio producer/podcaster (mixcloud.com/bynar, 400+ music podcasts), DJ, club promoter, blogger, video editor, graphic designer, web developer, and music/videogames journalist. For more info >>> click here
- Lecturer
Dr. Panagiotis Fotaris is Principal Lecturer at the University of Brighton. He is module leader for Game Design and Development, Narrative Design and Design Thinking. From 2018 to 2022 he was course leader for BSc (Hons) Digital Games Development and BSc (Hons) Computer Science for Games. He is also an active researcher in the field of game-based learning. He chaired the 14th and 15th European Conference on Games-Based Learning (ECGBL 2020, ECGBL2021) and the 21st European Conference on e-Learning (ECEL 2022). Dr. Fotaris has been a member of the technical committee for more than 30 international conferences. He is author or co-author of 32 journal articles and international conference proceedings (Google Scholar Citations: 880). He is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) and a Certified Scrum Master (CSM). Prior to joining academia, Dr. Fotaris held various roles in the creative industries, including mashup artist (soundcloud.com/bynar, 38 tracks, over 600,000 plays), radio producer/podcaster (mixcloud.com/bynar, over 400 music podcasts) , DJ, club promoter, blogger, video editor, graphic designer, web developer and music/video game journalist. For more info >>> this way.
Registration (closed)
SCHEDULE
click here to download a detailed plan of the workshop days
Information about the event
The face-to-face workshop in English will take place on January 26 and 27, 2023 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Bauhaus University in Weimar >>> in the Main BuildingIt is also implemented via the open source web conferencing system BigBlueButton and will be offered as a hybrid workshop. A tutorial "How to use BigBlueBlutton" in English can be found >>> here. No fees will be charged.
The face-to-face workshop in English will take place on January 26 and 27, 2023 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar >>> in the main buildingRoom 109, will take place. It will also be implemented via the open source web conferencing system BigBlueButton and offered as a hybrid. You can find a tutorial on how to use it in German >>> here. No participation fees will be charged.
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Contact us
Svea Benett | Coordination
Telephone: +49 (0) 36 43 / 58 12 80
E-Mail: svea.benett[at]uni-weimar.de
Iren Schulz | Communication
Telephone +49 (0) 36 43 / 58 12 65
E-Mail: iren.schulz[at]uni-weimar.de
