Zoom-Maximise Use of the Breakout Rooms

Some great tips on how to set up your Zoom breakout rooms when working with students, so that you can maximize the impact for students.

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0:00 Zoom Breakout Rooms -Introduction
01:08 Zoom Breakout Rooms -Give Your students specific Task
02:10 Zoom Breakout Rooms -Turn Your Webcam Off
03:49 Zoom Breakout Rooms -Work without Webcam
05:07 Zoom Breakout Rooms -Interactive Whiteboard
07:15 Zoom Breakout Rooms -How to save the Interactive Whiteboard
10:13 Zoom Breakout Rooms -Useful Settings
13:08 Zoom Breakout Rooms -Thanks for watching

I have been working for 10 years teaching with Adobe Connect breakout rooms and now with Zoom breakout rooms. I provide you with some useful tips and ideas about how to make the best use of the breakout rooms when working with students. These tips are based on observations and a few questionnaires that I have run with students after using Zoom breakout rooms. Tips include

1) Setting up a leader for each group
2) Making sure students know how to work with NEW SHARE
3) Make sure students know how to save the content in their IWBs so they can share it when they move back to the main group
4) Great tips around tasks, how to use the webcams, how to observe lessons etc.

If you make use of these ideas and use some of the tips I have suggested, you may find that your breakout sessions become much more successful. I found the tips I have suggested with webcams etc to be very useful. It has helped to make my Zoom classes more student focused and I have worked out ways of keeping the students on task. It is really important to make sure they save any discussions they have in the Zoom breakout rooms so that when they come back to the main room they can share their ideas with the rest of the class. It is also important that they know how to NEW SHARE so they can jump from sharing one thing to sharing another thing very easily so that they don't have to stop sharing. I also find it useful for students to learn to make use of all the tools when working with the IWB software. They can learn to clear the screen, add pages and write from the corner so that everything is clear and easy for the teachers to read.

#zoom #teachonline #breakoutrooms

[sheilamariaeyles]

Thanks for the tips. Very useful, as usual!

[nicknoakes]

Very good and useful information. But if you are teaching younger students English, have "Breakout Room House Rules"
1.. Speak in English only, 2, Everyone must participate in discussions and 3. You will be monitoring them at all times. This way you get more out of every student in the break out room.

[kathykleiser]

This was very helpful. I started teaching the students how to use Breakout Rooms and I wish I had seen this first. It would have saved me LOTS of time:) Thank you.

[BillieEnglish]

Hi Russell! Thank you for this very informative video. Just a quick question about the video panel disappearing in BORs: it seems to me this only happens when you go to the Zoom whiteboard? It does not happen when you are in the normal BOR - in my account it still shows a video panel in which you see a black box with the students names (and also the teacher's if I enter) - there is no video because it is off but you can still see a placeholder and everyone knows who is in that room. Am I missing something there?

[diagnembaye]

Thanks Russell. This tutorial is complete. Well done.

[carltonbrice]

As for Google Forms, or whatever else they need to work on, do you recommend that they do that task in the main room first, or first go into breakout rooms and do the task? If they do it first in the main rooms, the document will still be visible in the breakout room, won’t it? And vice versa, if they do it first in the breakout rooms, will it be visible back in the main room? Or do they have to save it or something? My problem with Forms is the results view. They do not see the results in either main room or breakout rooms. They can only see the results on my computer when I share my screen. To see the results view on their computers, I find I have to recopy and resend the link. Is that right?

[carmenelenacarrionretuerto]

Thanks for the useful video. I have some questions:If I have 4 groups with break out rooms, does each group have its own whiteboard? And can each group save the information and share it with the rest of the classmates?

[st.patrickskilsythcontact]

Hi Russell, brilliant videos I am learning a lot, I am really into zoom in a big way, the issue I had today is when as a Tutor I joined a Breakout Room my profile picture was displayed, I followed your tip of disabling the video, I quickly had to hide my profile picture once I was in the meeting, does the disable video only work once you are actually in the whiteboard setting or have I forgot to disable an option, can you help?

[elizabethhutchinson]

Hi Russell, I have been finding your videos really useful! Can I ask something about shared Google docs. If I want 4 breakout rooms to work on the same document separately do I have to create 4 separate Google docs or are they opening a new doc in their own breakout room? In other words, do I have to create 4 or just one Google doc?

[pmNewGenThinking]

Hi Russell - Good stuff your creating :)
Your advocating a workflow for students in a B-O using an IWB to use NewShare to swap between sources. I get swapping from video to shared board. There are a lot of other paths - such as: Can they each create an IWB then share w/ each other in the BO? If auto save is set then do they save each time someone in the BO uses New share? Are all boards saved on BO room close- there must be many other combinations - Challenge w/ zoom testing is needs a few folk as a friendly panel to explore how stuff works

[AC_]

Amazingly helpful! I learn so much useful information from your videos. Thank you Russell!

[diagnembaye]

Many thanks for your everlasting support.

[shiranisamarawickrama]

Hi Russell, I tried clicking on 'Share with participants' for sharing the screen while they are in the breakout room. Unfortunately it didn't work. Is there something they need to do while in the breakout room to access the main screen? Thank you. Shirani

[citybang]

Thanks, for the tips, clearly expressed . Nevertheless I have a question.. I was told about to use a camara but I don't see how to use it during the breakout meeting

[autoortawfiq]

Thanks Russell for these very useful tips. Thanks for all the useful videos you've put about online teaching, which gave loads of handy information and made me more confident in teaching online, an experience I had not done before the lockdown. Stay safe

[heidilieb]

Thanks for another helpful video! Two questions. Can you send messages to individual breakout rooms including links to Google slides? Or should that be done in the chat before going into breakout rooms?
Also, do you know of a site for student tutorials about how to use student tools in Zoom? (In other words, it would be nice to have all of those tips we have to teach our students in an easy to share tutorial.)

[maxseaton]

Thanks for the useful tips using breakout groups. Is there a way of saving the groups to use on another day or do I have to recreate each time people join the meeting.

[jamiemaples]

Hi! A couple teachers and I tried this at my school and love it! We found that the videos only completely disappear for the student who is sharing their screen. So a teacher can pop in to see what is happening unnoticed by the student sharing the screen, but the other students see them pop in. Is there a setting switch or something I am doing wrong for this to happen to everyone in the room? Thanks in advance!

[sheidahodge]

Russell, Thank you, Great instructon.

[evelyngrammar]

I have found that participants using Chromebooks don't have access to the annotation tools. Is that your experience? If yes, do you have a work-around? Thanks! Great information.