Part 4. Breakout Rooms for Collaborative Learning
During the pandemic, instructors teaching in Zoom have learned to take advantage of its “breakout room” feature to encourage student engagement and collaborative learning. After the return to in-person teaching, some classes may remain hybrid, with face-to-face and virtual students in the same classroom simultaneously. Group work in these circumstances can be challenging, but one way to engage virtual students with in-person groups might be to have some students in the classrooms put on headphones and go to a Zoom breakout room to engage with their virtual peers. This would give the breakout-room groups access to digital tools such as whiteboards and screen sharing. Instructors could visit the breakout rooms to monitor progress.
This quick tip has been drawn from “Improved student engagement in higher education’s next normal,” by Ed Glantz, Chris Gamrat, Lisa Lenze, and Jeffrey Bardzell, in the Educause Review, Tuesday, March 16, 2021.
For more on Zoom breakout rooms, see our Quick Guide, “Using Zoom Breakout Rooms Effectively.”
If you want to share your own ideas for what you will keep in your teaching when you head back to the in-person classroom, fill out our form and add your idea to our collection (to appear on our website in late April).
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