In Zoom, the teacher (host) can divide students into small working groups using the breakout rooms feature. The idea is that initially, everyone is in the main room, and the teacher assigns students to breakout rooms for collaborative work. Finally, when the teacher clicks the “End breakout rooms” button, all participants automatically return to the main room after 60 seconds.
Division of participants into breakout rooms
1. Click on the Breakout rooms button (Note: only the Host will be able to divide into small groups!)
2. You can quickly divide even a large group into small groups using automatic division: specify the number of rooms and click on the Create Rooms button. Zoom will tell you how many members will be in the rooms
3. Or: alternatively, if you want certain people in certain breakout rooms: select Manually and click on the Assign button under Room 1 and select the participants by clicking on the checkbox next to the participant's name.
- To move a participant to another small group: move the mouse pointer next to the student's name where the Move to button appears and select another group
- These groups are kept if you want to restart small group work during the same session.
- If necessary, during the same session, you can split students into new small groups to work together again using the Recreate button
- Pre-assign participants to Zoom breakout rooms: see instructions
Students working in breakout rooms
- Default settings: the student must accept the assignment to a small group by clicking on the Join button (in the teacher's summary view you will see a green mark for students who have already joined small groups).
(tip: If the teacher wants, he/she can also correct the move to breakout rooms without using the Join button: first click on Create breakout rooms and then select Options: Move all participants into breakout automatically). - In breakout rooms, students have access to the following tools: microphone, camera, screen sharing, and a whiteboard where they can draw or write briefly:
- Tip: The Whiteboard tool can be found under the Share button. Note: When using the Whiteboard tool, only one participant can draw or write, i.e. can't work at the same time.
- Options for documenting your work:
- The teacher can share a PowerPoint presentation in advance on the cloud, with each group having one slide on which to write their output. The advantage is that the work of all the groups is then stored in one place.
- Alternatively, one student in the group creates a document in the cloud that all students in the breakout room can work on together at the same time.
- If one of the students records the group's comments on a whiteboard, the student must remember to save the whiteboard before leaving the room - otherwise it will be lost! The whiteboard document will be saved on the teacher's own computer: documents > Zoom folder > folder by date, i.e. in the same place where any recording of the Zoom session would be saved.
Teacher guidance in breakout rooms
- The teacher can send a message to all small groups using the Broadcast message function. Good uses: e.g. as a refresher, or a reminder: 'there are x minutes left before we return to the main room'.
- The teacher can visit the small group rooms by clicking on the Join button next to the small group room name.
- Students can send a request to the teacher from the breakout room by clicking on the Ask for help > Invite host button. As a teacher, you will see the message "Student X in Breakout Room Y asked for help". You can click on Join Breakout room or if you are already in another breakout room, click on Later.
- Note: if there are several teachers in a Zoom session: even if they are in alternative host or co-host roles, only the host teacher will be able to assign the breakout rooms. If other teachers want to move to the breakout rooms, the Host teacher must move them to the breakout rooms. However, teachers can return from the breakout rooms to the main room if necessary and the host can move them to the next one.