Instructions for escaping "Outside the Box" thinking... - C. Frye

"Thinking Outside the Box"

Connect all nine dots using 4 straight lines without picking up your pencil.

The above challenge is often given as a way to inspire "outside the box" thinking.  The solution requires the puzzle solver to ignore the perceived boundaries of the nine dots in order to find a solution.  While the solution might seem to be different for different people, it is the exact same solution rotated around a central axis.  In other words, there is really only one solution.  Not exactly "outside the box" thinking, if you ask me.

One possible solution to the problem

As a one-off inspiration, the lesson works--yes, sometimes a problem solver has to break through the perceived barriers in order to solve the problem.  I get the idea, but innovation is part of my job, and the big struggle for me is how to foster that same sense of growth in students.  With easily acquired solutions available with simple google searches, there is little value in attempting to encourage easily solved puzzles.

BreakoutEdu

I love video games.  Specifically, ones that require a certain amount of figuring out.  Long before the days of Minecraft videos being posted on YouTube, there were games like Myst that challenged the player to figure out the game from the very start.  No instructions, no tutorials, barely even installation instructions.  The longer I played, the more I was never even sure there was a point to playing the game as it always seemed to be just an endless series of puzzles.  Solve a door lock and suddenly you were in a maze with no map trying to chart your way out (all from the comfort of an office chair.) The idea of seeing and solving puzzles and looking for solutions that might not be 100% obvious represent my primary method of learning.  A few years ago, I encountered a solution to that problem of encouraging innovation in my students in a way that would simulate a level of puzzle solving that I think is critical to innovative thinking.

So here's the puzzle:

At least, that's where I started my BreakoutEdu experience.  I built my own because I wanted to see what would work and what wouldn't before I launched into their product.  For this particular test, there were no questions, no setup, no explanations.  Just very simple directions to a class.

"You have 45 minutes to open the box."

The first class did not open the box, the puzzles I made were too hard.  The second class did open the box, barely.  By the time I got to the third and fourth classes running my experiment, I had learned many of the places where I needed to make changes.

Here's a comprehensive list of what I learned in the process of trying to help students solve a puzzle:
1. Reset your locks to a neutral combination as soon as you are done.  Write that number down.
2. Try not to jump in and help, even though you want to.
3. Make your final lock the hardest to open and don't make it part of the opening statement.
4. When they outsmart your puzzle, praise them.
5. Be aware that students will attempt to share answers to the puzzles if they can
6. Have fun.

The Future

I have plans to incorporate more specific concepts with the box to keep the thematic context of a breakout box (or possibly even an escape room) relevant to a class.  But my failures, in this case, were all surrounding my own attempts at understanding how my students think.  As suspected, there were the hardcore puzzle solvers - the ones who thought they could open the box themselves without any assistance.  There were the organizers - those who kept insisting that charts and information be recorded in case it was needed later.  There were the organic thinkers - those who just sat and waited for ideas.  There were the outsider - those that sat along the fringes and did or didn't participate at will, all while silently judging.  And finally, there were the strugglers - those that wanted specific direction because it was too difficult to think.

In the end, despite the students' experience, I like to think that I learned the best lesson of all - each student is going to face a challenge in his or her own way, and attempting to put that line of thinking into a nice, neat box, does both me and them a disservice.  We need a variety of assessment tools for a variety of learners, and we need to avoid using any one specific idea for too long or too often.

Keep it fresh, keep it interesting, and you'll find yourself not only thinking outside the box but also trying to escape it.