10 Best Practices for Breakout Rooms

Whether you are using Google Meet or Microsoft Teams,  breakout rooms are an important tool for remote and blended learning. Effective and meaningful student collaboration is possible online.

1. Small Group Discussion: 

Most teachers understand the value of having students work together on a problem or break down an idea. Talking through ideas is based in social learning theory. It also gives students a time to reflect, restate and share ideas without the stage and attention of the entire class.

2. Book or Idea Chats:

Prediction, reflection and understanding subtext are all skills of critical thinking that can be developed in breakout rooms.  Using a breakout room for a smaller group to predict what might happen in a story or a scientific experiment can help them articulate their learning in less stressful ways.

3. Class Debates:

Send students into breakout rooms to debate ideas using the standard debating format. Or find a way to do this philosophical chairs activity where students can now ask to switch rooms based on a change of opinion.

4. Peer Editing:

Peer editing work can be a beneficial use of breakout rooms. Make sure students have a foundation and clear guidelines for offering effective and constructive feedback. It is important to set up peer feedback protocols for a more powerful use of breakout rooms. 

5. Small-Group Instruction: 

Small group instruction can make personal interaction easier and more effective. Create your small groups intentionally. When you have them set,  create breakout rooms for discussion of a concept, analysis or idea and then let students choose the breakout room that works best for their needs (you will need to assign based on self-selection).

6. Collaborative Jamboard or Slides Activities :

Students can work together in a breakout room to create something on a collaborative Jam or Slides project. Consider a character profile or learn now to do a group sketchnote together where they summarize an important concept.

7. Study Groups and Read-Alouds:

 Allowing students to come up with their reasons for breakout rooms can include self-initiated rooms for things like study groups and read-alouds. The University of Iowa reports reading aloud creates a classroom community by establishing a known text that can be used as the basis for building on critical thinking skills that are related and unrelated to reading. Please note: this is not popcorn reading. A good way to engage your students during a read-aloud is to start the process of sketchnoting with them. Here is a great article called A Simple Way to Get Your Students Sketchnoting.

8.Virtual Field Trips to Book Setting or Historical Landmarks:

Where could your students go in Google Meet together? It could be as simple as the setting of a book, a historical location,or as impressive as an international voyage. Google Arts and Culture is a great place to get started visiting hundreds of places of interest. Let your students go to Paris for the day and visit The Louvre or Musee d’Orsay. Use this virtual trip for writing prompts or larger lesson ideas.

9. Collaborate with Another Class: 

Find another class to meet with and to work on a project together or just share ideas. This might be a great way to get kids more excited and engaged - check the temperature of the students on this one as they might be tired of virtual learning and not ready for this new activity that would require getting to know unfamiliar students.. 

10. Student as the Expert:

Have students unpack a time period, a character, or concept and become an expert of that idea. Students move between breakout rooms to ask questions of the experts.This is not a place for students to teach others as experts there is some research that suggests this strategy is not as effective as we previously thought.

11. Small Group Brainstorming:

Have you ever just needed to call a friend to talk through an idea? Students need the same environment for unpacking ideas and deconstructing their thoughts. Students can do just that in breakout rooms, but will need the proper guidance from teachers on question to ponder and projects and questions to brainstorm over.