Using escape room-like puzzles to teach undergraduate students effective and efficient group process skills

Abstract

Many jobs require the ability to collaborate effectively in teams, and STEM jobs are no exception. However, few curricula have been published that are explicitly designed to help undergraduates in STEM fields internalize the skills that are central to effective collaborative work. Students are typically assumed to be able to acquire these skills on their own. But when students without training are assigned to work in teams, they are no more likely to learn effective group process skills than if they were assigned a golf club and told to go figure out how to golf. In fact, without appropriate instruction and feedback, students typically develop counterproductive habits and attitudes, such as avoiding conflict, that undercut the effectiveness of a team. In this work-in-progress paper, I describe a curricular approach that has helped my students learn how to use teams in efficient, effective ways. It allows students to practice individual skills one at a time but also presents integrative team challenges that force them to decide how and when to apply specific group process skills and strategies. These challenges consist of 90-minute scavenger hunt or escape room-like puzzles that can only be completed within the time limit if students make efficient use of their assigned teams. Students describe these ungraded puzzles as anxiety-provoking but fun, and their progressive improvement over five once-a-week puzzles suggests that they internalize effective communication skills and learn ways of efficiently using teams to solve problems.