Breakout rooms are a surprisingly powerful tool when it comes to any online meeting or workshop. Keeping everyone in the same main room throughout the entire meeting or session will lead to more multitasking and less participation (and honestly, fewer opportunities for people to feel valued and heard!).
Breakout rooms are great for small group work, solo reflection, and changing up the energy of your session.
There are a few things that can help enhance their usability for participants and make our jobs as facilitators a bit easier.
Timers
There are two timers that we can use for breakout rooms–and in Zoom both need to be set ahead of time.
One timer controls how long the breakout room will last. Use this timer when you want participants to remain aware of the amount of time they have the entire time they’re in the breakout room. We always use this feature when there is a limited amount of time and multiple people need to share. It helps participants be able to pace themselves.
The second timer controls how long the time is after you press “close breakout rooms.” We set this countdown timer for 60 seconds and we give people a two-minute warning before we press it to help facilitate a more mellow exit.
Add Room
Whenever we automatically generate breakout rooms, we add a few extra rooms before we open the breakout rooms.
Note that the only time we can add extra rooms is before opening the breakout rooms.
Extra rooms come in handy for late arrivals, a private chat with your co-facilitator, or if we want to jump into a room with participants who have more questions. After we create the number of breakout rooms we want, we add one or two extra just in case!
Push To Breakout Rooms
There is a setting in Zoom that will instantly push people to breakout rooms when we open them. We use this option when we want participants to be pulled into breakout rooms instantaneously.
We un-ticking that box and allow participants to need to actively press the ‘join breakout room’ button when we want to give them more agency and choice.
We tend to favor participants having to press the button. It ensures everyone in the breakout rooms took a small action to get there and will be more likely to participate (rather than someone just passively listening in). This is particularly helpful when doing pair breakout rooms because it’s really important to know the folks are in a room with someone who is ready to participate with them!
We always try and increase our participant’s agency in sessions. Small actions like allowing participants to opt in when they’re ready to join their rooms can have an outsized impact!
In our upcoming posts, we’ll dig into how we navigate getting participants excited to go to breakout rooms and what we have them do once they’re there.
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Check out the rest of our Get Better at Zoom Series:
Breakout Rooms pt.2 - Participation Boogaloo
Breakout Rooms pt. 3 - The Power of Solo Breakouts
How to Make Digital Handouts Easy
Three Unique Ways to use the Zoom Chat
Set a “No Late Arrivals” Policy
Improve Recordings with These Five Tips!