Facilitating Student Engagement Through Breakout Rooms

The aim of this session is to share my experiences and reflections on the use of breakout rooms on Zoom to facilitate student engagement. Being a language teacher, it is essential to encourage my students to talk. I will share some collaborative activities that engage students in breakout rooms. Last, I would also like to discuss some of the challenges we have experienced along the way and how we can tackle them.

Session Aims

The aims of this session are to:

• Share experiences of how to use breakout rooms effectively

• Demonstrate how to adapt face-to face group work strategies to a virtual classroom

• Identify strengths and weaknesses of breakout rooms, based on our experiences and student feedback

• Demonstrate how to pre-assign students to allocated breakout rooms 

Links to UKPSF

K1: The session will provide guidance  to support the effective design and planning of online group work / online discussions and debates

K2: The session will consider appropriate methods to support online engagement through breakout rooms

K4: The session will demonstrate how to use appropriate technology to support student communication and collaboration inside breakout rooms