

The students were working with BreakoutEDU, 1 an immersive games platform. Some of the materials on the table provided clues, others turned out to be red herrings.

Engaged in animated, yet hushed, conversations to keep the other team from overhearing, the students puzzled over cryptic messages and secret codes, hoping to unlock the box and reveal what was inside. If you’d walked by Professor Susan Detwiler’s Writing and Critical Inquiry (WCI) classrooms at the University at Albany-SUNY on September 7, you would have seen something rather unusual: two teams of students huddled around tables, preoccupied with locked boxes and an assortment of other materials. Susan Detwiler is a member of the WCI faculty, email: Trudi Jacobson is head of information literacy, email: and Kelsey O’Brien is information literacy librarian and liaison to the WCI Program at the University at Albany-SUNY, email: 2018 Susan Detwiler, Trudi Jacobson, and Kelsey O’Brien Helping students break out of their comfort zones Susan Detwiler, Trudi Jacobson, and Kelsey O’Brien BreakoutEDU
