Breakout Rooms in Microsoft Teams
Breakout Rooms are a way to separate the participants in a meeting into mini meetings, either randomly or by organising them yourself. They can provide an opportunity for small group tasks and interactivity within a larger online session.
Notes on setup
- Breakout Rooms are found in the top menu in Teams, from the icon labelled 'Rooms'.
- Only an organiser or co-organiser on a Teams Meeting can launch Breakout Rooms
- Important – currently Breakout Rooms can only be launched using the Microsoft Teams desktop app, not via the browser or mobile app. Participants can however attend the Break Rooms via any method.
- Once launched, you can choose to assign groups, or randomly allocate participants. Full details of this are in the links below.
- Full detailed guidance on using Breakout Rooms from the Digital Skills Team [link to: Creating and Managing Breakout Rooms (sharepoint.com)]
Advice for successful use of Breakout Rooms
- As with all digital tools, use Breakout Rooms in a low-stake environment (such an icebreaker task) when using them for the first time. This ensures familiarity before an activity more integral to learning takes place.
- Ensure there is a suitable length of time for the task in hand.
- Move between Breakout Rooms to check participants are engaging and keeping on task.
- Ask participants to report back from their group after the task. This can be a brief presentation, contribution to a shared document, or a quick summary in the chat.
- Tell participants Breakout Rooms are coming up later in the session – it can be jarring for some people to suddenly be pulled into an active task.
- Ensure details of the Breakout task is available to participants during the task (such as in a document linked from the chat), not just on a slide in the main room.
- Remember Breakout Rooms will not be recorded, but the Main Room will continue to be. Either stop the recording, or be careful not to say anything you don't want recording while students are in Breakout Rooms.