10 ways to improve breakout room experiences

I am sure by now, many of you have explored and used breakout rooms in some capacity to simulate an in-class, in-person dynamic lost to us as a result of COVID. The breakout room is how we do small group work in an online course. If you have been struggling with it or not sure if it is useful, you are not alone.

In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, it appears our students have some mixed feelings about the breakout room as well. It seems some find them awkward because nobody talks or classmates turn off their camera and disengage. Instructions aren’t clear about what they are to do, or they are left in the room too long, and they feel like it is a waste of time.  However, there are also positive benefits from using breakout rooms. These include some students feeling more comfortable in smaller groups, and it provides live face-to-face interactions.

I think we all agree that interaction is essential to learning, and given the dynamic of online learning, we do need to find ways to engage learners in real time with us and each other. The key issues that create challenges in breakout rooms include lack of detailed instructions, clearly defined student roles and tasks, appropriate time limits, and teacher presence. It is also vital to make sure you provide guidance and a tutorial about navigating a Zoom breakout room for your students to decrease potential frustration when they engage the platform. 

Here are some suggestions for how to make your breakout sessions more effective.

1. Be clear about why you are choosing student group work. There should be a teaching strategy behind using group learning because of what group learning affords students, such as interaction, sharing ideas and thoughts, and collaborative work. 

2. Provide detailed, clear instructions for what must be accomplished during the group work. It may be helpful to provide a written copy. 

3. Assign students (or have them assign) roles, such as note-taker, timer, presenter, facilitator, etc. 

4. Consider the group size. Unfortunately, there is no agreed-upon group size relative to effective learning. From my experience and depending on the tasks students are to accomplish, more than eight students can be challenging. If a group is too small, there may not be enough work to go around. If the group is too large, then students can fade back and not participate. The goal is for everyone to be active.  

5. Consider group members. The idea of group work is to foster engagement. Students need to feel safe and comfortable in a group dynamic; thus, considering student personalities and attributes when creating groups. Or students can pick their own groups, although this can sometimes create problems with getting them to stay on task. 

6. Time limits. In general, the shorter, the better. However, some tasks may require more time. Consider providing time benchmarks. For example, let them know they should be on item 3 of 4 by 10 minutes into the activity. You can also assign someone to be a timer in the group to keep the students on task.  

7. Foster connection. A common reason we use group dynamics is to foster connection and collaboration among students. It may be helpful to have the group start with a brief activity loosely or not related to the assignment, such as 3 minutes of free chat time.  

8. Mix things up. Consider changing up group members from time to time and assigning different tasks to different groups versus everyone working on the same assignment.  

9. Use shared documents. Depending on what the students are to accomplish, using a shared document platform such as google docs can be helpful, and it also documents the students' work.  

10. Room visitation. Naturally, we want to pop into the breakout rooms to check on the students, just as we would walk around a room if they were in groups. However, visiting breakout rooms can be challenging because the students can’t see when we are approaching. We suddenly appear. It can be a real conversation stopper! Consider establishing how the group would like you to join, provide a time when you will join so they know when you will arrive, or leave it up to them to signal you to join if they are having a problem. 

As many of us continue to deliver our curriculum online, group learning and breakout rooms provide an effective learning method.  Taking time to plan, including students in some of the decision-making, and being mindful about some of the challenges of this format may improve your course effectiveness and the students learning experience.

References

Facilitate Group Work (n.d.). Center for Teaching and Learning. University of Colorado – Boulder. Retrieved from https://www.colorado.edu/center/teaching-learning/teaching-resources/teaching-well-technology/zoom/facilitate-group-work

McMurtrie, B. (2020). Teaching: How to make breakout rooms work better. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/teaching/2020-12-10

Successful Breakout rooms in Zoom. (n.d.). Stanford Teaching Commons, Stanford University. Excerpted from Diane Lam’s “Structuring Short –Term Group Work Online with Zoom Breakout Rooms.” Retrieved from https://teachingcommons.stanford.edu/news/successful-breakout-rooms-zoom

For more information about setting up and managing Zoom breakout rooms visit: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476313