Breakout Activities

Breakout Rooms: Small group activities

The breakout room function in your live session classroom allows you to split your students into up to 50 separate groups, either automatically or manually. Students in each breakout room will have full audio, video, chat, and screen share capabilities. Small group activities provide opportunities for students to develop active listening, critical thinking, communication, and decision making skills while building relationships and mastering content. It can also function as a nice change of pace during a live session.

Facilitating a successful small group activity takes planning and preparation to ensure each group has the information, resources, and time needed to effectively complete the learning objectives. This section explains the technical features of the breakout room in your live session classroom, identify best practices for facilitating small group discussions, and provide some activity examples you can use during a live session.

Breakout Room and Report Back Activities 2019

Breakout activity considerations:

  1. Determine if a breakout room activity will be the most effective use of your live session time given the purposes of the course and the learning styles of the students in your section.

  2. Consider the amount and size of the breakout groups. For most breakout activities, we recommend you have 2-5 students in each group to ensure everyone has the opportunity to contribute. Depending on the number of key concepts and size of your live session, it may make sense to have more than one group doing the same activity.

  3. Prepare prior to class all resources each breakout group will need to successfully complete the activity. We recommend sharing that information with each group by:

  • Uploading a document in Chat for students to download prior to moving to the breakout room.

  • Posting a document on the Course Announcements

  • Creating and sharing Google Docs

  1. Prepare to lead a wrap up discussion after all groups have presented.

  2. Stick to a strict timeline for each aspect of the activity. Breakout activities can quickly take up a significant part of the live session time if not effectively managed. Remember to allow yourself some buffer time for the activity explanation, students getting instructions, and technical set up.


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