This session begins by outlining the challenges of developing and running effective breakout room activities and provides an account of the student perception of the use and limitations of breakout rooms during a recent student-staff consultation. The second part of this session explores the process of transforming a face-to-face collaborative final year module in Biomedical Science into an entirely online experience with breakout room activities at its core. Combining breakout room activities with a mixture of complex pre-prepared and unseen course materials with a range of online collaborative learning tools including Padlet, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google forms and Moodle, ensured students were actively engaged with their task. The use of drop-in facilitators to guide teamwork activities and the use of a nominal pre-published assessment matrix encouraged participation and widespread contribution to the breakout room activities.
Session Aims
The aims of this session are to:
Understand the concerns of breakout room activities from a student perspective.
Identify suitable apps that can be employed to promote effective collaborative exercises in synchronous and asynchronous forums.
Recognise the value of meaningful tasks in designing successful breakout room activities.
Links to UKPSF
A1: Looking at how group work is being designed with online only options
A2: How to engage students in the process when they are currently reluctant to take part
A4: Looking at what makes and drives the engagement with online only group work
K2: Finding a way to increase student interest through developing a range of approaches to the subject
K3: Look at what the students find useful through conversations with them
K4: Fitting the appropriate technology into activities to make it engaging and clear about what the student should achieve
V1: Not everyone is going to engage, so look at how the whole group can support and develop their skills and what the students can do to be a larger piece of the process. (Not just academic led)
