How Educational Escape Rooms Engage People with Innovation
The past few years have seen the rise in popularity of escape rooms, so much so that most metro cities have at least one escape room.
They have garnered this fame due to their unique play experience based on themes that are popular with everyone, the adrenaline rush experienced on escaping is unmatched.
The escape room thrilling and enjoyable experience has now crossed the bounds of just popular themes. Today educational forums, have smartly tried to incorporate them into their educational programs. They made use of these escape rooms to make learning fun.
Below we shall discuss some of the aspects that can help in making escape rooms more engaging, which can be done through pure creativity and bringing in a different approach to fashioning escape rooms.
1. COGITATIVE THINKING
The entire process of escaping escape rooms requires analytical thinking, working together in tandem, and putting together the pieces of the puzzle. This process enhances the said skills and is especially useful in inducing these characteristics in kids.
Being fun and educational helps students in the incorporation of these skills at a young age, it makes them critical thinkers.
The essence of escape rooms is the analytical part, and it decides the difficulty level. It ranges from complex head-scratchers to simple logical reasoning.
Although a simple one would create a tense atmosphere, it would be without the pressure of a classroom environment making them fun. An educational escape room would be the definition of fun learning.
2. INNOVATIVE THINKING
Critical and an analytic approach is imperative to solve the clues the escaping aspect requires one to listen to their creative side. This creative and innovative thinking is required to escape and makes the entire process a fun ride.
Escape rooms are filled with odd clues, various kinds of encodings, items hidden in nooks and corners. There is the use of everyday items in unique ways, which makes escape rooms a different and exhilarating experience.
Due to the innovative ways in which the escape rooms are designed, they are never boring. They have to be innovative in order to be able to get away!
3. CO-OPERATION
The best thing that can be taught via these educational escape rooms is teaching individuals to work together. If one is good at critical thinking and the other is creative, and they refuse to work together, they will never be able to escape.
It teaches the participants the value of teamwork. Some of the new escape rooms mandatorily require skills and good thinking from the entire group to escape within time.
Teamwork being is such an important and valued trait in all professions that learning is imperative in today’s world.
Hence educational escape rooms instill the value of teamwork and coordination and make one realize its worth and satisfaction of team success over self-motivated successes.
4. INTERACTION & COMMUNICATION
Some people find it difficult to communicate, they could be socially awkward or introverts. Some people might also fear being wrong and hence cannot gather up the courage to communicate.
Communication is key for educational escape rooms as coordination without communication would be pointless. Thereby, educational escape rooms compel people to interact and build trust in each other. It also teaches people to learn and observe from others and thereby interact.
TIP: From the point of view of adults, escape rooms help in breaking the ice even with them, as the communication helps in setting everybody at ease, be it a corporate function or a simple date.
5. ENCOURAGES ANALYTICAL APPROACH
As stated previously, the very essence of escape rooms is solving the puzzle, and this naturally requires an analytical approach and logical thinking.
Without analyzing each aspect and clue, there is no way forward. Quickly thinking while analyzing all the pieces put together will ultimately help the participants escape the rooms.
Everything in an escape room can be a clue, what people need to do is analyze what could be the meaning of each, which one could be a clue, and look at everything in front of them logically. Hence people need to be logical and analytical.
6. THEME BASED
Even if the escape room is an educational one, there would be one particular topic based on it. The topic decided then further defines how the escape room will be fashioned and all of its particulars. .
There are innumerable ways in which they can be used, and all one needs is imagination. Hence all the scientific subjects that come under STEM can be incorporated in designing an educational escape room.
No matter educational or entertaining, escape rooms never fail to be fun, which is why they are so popular. They find love not just among youths but all age groups.
7. PERSONALITY BUILDING
Personality development is another aspect that educational escape rooms contribute to, not just for your professional life but also for your personal life.
They help boost your confidence, enhance your communication skills, and overcome all kinds of fears you have when faced with a social situation. It also instills in one the competitive spirit to achieve one’s goal even under pressure or a time crunch.
Educational forums and corporates have come to the conclusion that escape rooms are one of the most effective ways to provide a feel of communities within any association, be it a company or an educational institute.
8. ACCESSIBILITY
Escape rooms being a recent development, it has constantly evolved with the change in trends and popularity. While being a physical game, even-aged and differently-abled individuals can play and enjoy.
Further, it is so up-to-date that now even digital escape rooms have emerged. The pandemic came its mind-numbing boredom and frustration, and escape rooms provided us with the requisite escape when they arrived on the digital platform.
9. MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE
Escape rooms are a fun, and memorable experience, say what may. They are so discretely educative that while having all the fun and making memories for a lifetime, you also acquire and enhance life skills.
You are developing your personality and instilling in traits that will forever benefit you while simply playing and enjoying a game. It is just one hour, a single hour of our monotonous life, and it is an escape which is why people enjoy the game.
Hence, as long as the goal is having fun, add a side of any objective, whether educational or not, and it will be successful.
CONCLUSION
The scope of innovation in escape rooms and the wide variety of ways they can be used and designed makes it so useful. It is one of the reasons for its massive impact on the industry.
The beauty of escape rooms is that all its educational virtues are not forced. The communication, the team working, the overcoming of social awkwardness happens on their own. It isn’t compelled, it happens with ease as the atmosphere is fun and friendly.
