Zoom has a feature known as "Breakout Rooms" that will allow you to separate your class into smaller groups for group activities and discussions. These rooms can only be controled by the host of the Zoom, in most cases, this will be the Professor or TA. Breakout Rooms allow you to manually assign students to their room and also provide the option for the students to be randomly and automatically assigned. The below steps will detail both options.

1. To the left of “End Meeting” you will find an icon that says "More" with three dots. Click on this. From the menu that appears, click the option that says “Breakout Rooms” beneath it, click on this icon.

2. When you click on the icon, a new box will appear on your screen. The top will say “Breakout Rooms” If you would like to manually assign groups, make sure you check off the button that says “Manually.” For Zoom to automatically assign students to a group, make sure the button that says “Automatically” is checked off.

3. To go into each breakout room and hear the conversation, click the button in the same row as “end meeting” that says “Breakout Room” and you can click the breakout room you want to enter

4. You can close all break out rooms by clicking on the button by “end meeting” that says “Breakout Rooms”

Manually Assigned Rooms

4. • • Before clicking “Create Breakout Rooms” make sure you have entered the number of groups you want in the box to the left of where it says “Rooms” then click the Blue Button that says “Create Breakout Rooms”

     • Now you will see a screen that says “Breakout Rooms – Not Started” across the top. To the right of each room name, you will see the word “Assign” in blue. This is how you can manually assign groups.

     • You will click on “Assign” and a list of all participants will pop up. You can check off the box of who you want in the group

     • You will have to repeat this for all Breakout Rooms listed

     • On the bottom right of this screen, click the blue button to start the breakout rooms

Automatically Assigned Breakout Rooms

• Before Clicking the blue button that says “Create Breakout Rooms” make sure you have entered the number of groups you want in the box to the left of where it says “Rooms” Then click the blue button that says “Create Breakout Rooms”

• This will automatically place students and launch all breakout rooms.

Please Note: You will have to tell your students to join the breakout room by clicking the “join breakout room” button that shows up on the box that now appears on their screen. As the host you have the ability to close all breakout rooms and have everyone rejoin the main session as you please. There will be a 1 minute pause before all students have rejoined the main Zoom unless they select the “Join Main Session” button that appears on their screen when you close the Breakout Room.