News From the Nest-Spotlight on Learning: Escape Room Final Assessment
Spotlight On Learning
Presented by: Ms. Charlene Storozuk
Subject: FSL 9
Driving Question: Escape Room Final Assessment
TEACHER DESCRIPTION and/or REFLECTION:
This semester I wanted to try an escape room concept with my students as their final assessment. I thought it would be a good way for them to demonstrate their language skills as well as their critical thinking and collaboration skills. I provided 8 different puzzles/activities for them to solve and when they did, they were left with a 3, 4 or 5 digit number as their “code”. Once the group had completed their individual puzzle, they entered all of their codesonto a master sheet, and I told them how many codes they had correct. Some groups were off by just one number and quickly worked as a group this time to figure out what they needed to fix.
They were able to enter codes 4 times (once for each member of their group) before their time expired and they were “locked in”. I provided 3 different levels of puzzles for each group and asked them to decide which one they wanted to work on (DEV, PRF or EXT). I was pleased to see that students who finished a DEV puzzle early tried a PRF level one for their next turn!
STUDENT REFLECTIONS:
In our French 9 class, we had an escape room as our final assessment. In my experience, it was a fun and enjoyable assessment. We worked as a group and individually solved puzzles to figure out a code. It was an exciting challenge that tested our language skills and vocabulary. It went very well. We used our critical thinking skills to figure out the codes, which I had some difficulties with at first but then figured it out. Our group was very invested in the assessment and wanted to finish before time. This assessment was much better than a regular final exam because we got to showcase our knowledge in a very fun and interesting way rather than having a lot of stress about it! Jasmin D.