Breakout rooms are like mini Zoom meetings within your main Zoom meeting. The host and co-hosts of a Zoom meeting can set up, re-organize, and close breakout rooms at any point during a meeting. Participants can be split up into rooms automatically (random) or manually. Participants can also be allowed to self-select their own breakout rooms!
Visual Classrooms is a cloud-based active learning platform that allows you to promote collaborative learning in your classroom, and engages students in team based critical and creative thinking. You can also observe student progress with the help of embedded, research based analytics and reports.
You can set up a board in advance to share with your class for anonymous text-based participation. Use this tool to structure discussions, collect reflections from your students, or check understanding mid-class.
Best Practices
Virtual Discussions
Provide the discussion or activity prompt in the chat so that students can refer back to it from the breakout rooms
Let students know that they can call you into their breakout room if the need help or have questions
If you're giving the students an activity to complete, make sure that the instructions are clear and that students know their roles before going into the breakout rooms
Text-based Discussion
Provide instructions on how to use the tool, students may not be familiar with how it works
Practice using the tool yourself before you use it in class!
Ask a question that's answerable within the space available in the tool
Olsen, J. K., Faucon, L., & Dillenbourg, P. (2020). Transferring interactive activities in large lectures from face-to-face to online settings. Information and Learning Science, 121(7), 559-567. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-04-2020-0109
White, E. B. (2022). A compassionate approach to IL instruction: What we can learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. Portal : Libraries and the Academy, 22(1), 151-175. Retrieved from https://login.ezproxy.library.tufts.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/compassionate-approach-il-instruction-what-we-can/docview/2769366158/se-2